Need an answer to link death problem please!

[jdoucet]

I've spent the last few days looking over the other posts about online gaming problems with a Linksys router, but I've found no answers and they don't seem to match exactly to my issue.

I have an AMD 800 512mb RAM using DSL and running Win 98 SE. Nothing special but it runs my game just fine. The DSL is using a PPPOE connection thru a DSL modem and then into my Linksys where it is shared with my other old crappy pc. The problem is that when I play Everquest, which I do religiously, every hour or so my connection goes poop and I go link dead. If you are familiar with EQ then you know this means death if you are in the middle of a high level raid, not too mention it is so freaking annoying.

I've tried downloading some of the tweak utilities you guys have mentioned and played around with settings, but nothing seems to fix this issue. I'm almost 100% positive it's my Linksys router and someone mentioned that there is a port that I need to open and adjust an Advanced setting on the damn thing, but he had no details.

This is driving me nuts and I could really use some help here guys.

Duece

[jdoucet]

One other thing that makes me think it's my router is the fact that both machines go link dead at exactly the same time. Een when my friend brings his pc over and plugs it in to the network his goes link dead at the same time, so doubt it's a nic or OS issue.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Recent firmware on the router?

On the web admin setup page, first page, down on the bottom, "Keep Alive" checked?

Under the "Advanced" tab over on the right, the Filters tab, down below, put a check in "Enable MTU" and set it to 1472.

I don't play EQ, not sure about what ports it uses....but if you can get going at least for a minute playing the game, I highly doubt that ports are the issue. Ports let unknown traffic into your network, you forward ports if you wish to run a server and make it public. NAT firewalls always allow traffic that originates from within back inside...since it's trusted. So just about all client software works without dealing with ports.

[jdoucet]

Yes, newest firmware version is installed. I also tried the Stay Alive and Connect on Demand options, but neither made any difference. The MTU is set at 1472, but someone had mentioned changing it to 1500 which I have tried only using TCP Optimizer.

It almost seems like the connection is dropping from inactivity, but the game is always sending/recieving data. The link lights are alwayss blinking away, until it goes link dead.

[jdoucet]

I could really use some help guys, can you please post to my thread?