I have two PC's running W2K connected to a Netgear RT314. Also have DSL modem connected. The network has worked great for the first 12 months. Last week, both PC's experienced very slow/failed connections to Internet an email. Problem is intermittent.

When I look at the logs on both machines, DNS and DHCP errors started showing up last week.

I've powered down the router and reset the modem. When I can connect to the internet, the speed is normal (1.2mb and 128K).

No changes have been made to the PC's or router. Any recommendations?

Try to put the pc's on another port of the inside hub/switch of the Netgear.

It looks like a problem with the build-in hub/switch.

Try to put a file from one to the other computer and measure the speed. Is this normal or also slow.

You can also try to throw away the tcp/ip protocol on both machines and reinstall it. Maybe it works.

If I had a dollar to bet, I would bet on Hans Diag, Flakey port. Please let me know. I just like to see how lucky I can get sometimes by doing long distance diagnostics.

Underdog

Thanks for your responses. I moved both PC's to new ports on the hub - no improvement. Deleted tcp/ip and added back - no improvement. I tried to copy file from one PC to the other - it took forever just to see the directory structure! Is it possibly a flakey NIC?

I don't think it's because of a bad nic. But you can try this:
Take one pc out of the network and see if the internet is normal on the still connected pc you know that the other nic is bad. Doesn't work good? Try the other pc on the same way.

Doesn't this work???
Then it should be your router which is bad. Try to put the internetconnection directly on one of your pc's and see if the internetconnection is ok. If so you know that the problem doesn't occurs because of a bad adslmodem. In this case your router should be bad.

I hope to hear if you are making any progress.

The dsl modem has been ruled out because I have no problems when connecting it directly to the PC. I'm going to talk to Netgear now to troubleshoot/get warranty service.

A bad router was the problem. Netgear has replaced, under warranty. The RMA process was relatively painless - 2 calls and 30 minutes of testing/diagnostics.