mariner and ICOT,
thanks for all that info. I don’t think its the rain or anything like that because it happens often – several times per week, sometimes more than once a day, not just once in a blue moon when maybe there was a big storm somewhere.
I do have the rectangle cable modem that optimum gave me and no router – I thought you only need a router to share the modem between several computers, never knew it was unsafe. Why is that? the router blocks viruses and spyware? Also, the modem is connected directly to the computer via USB cable not ethernet cable. Would the latter be better?
some background in case it helps: I own a network switch (pardon my ignorance, but that’s not the same thing as a router is it?), not wireless just 5 or 6 ports to plug ethernet cables into. Before I got my vista computer, I had an XP box and also used the switch to connect an XP laptop to it to share files and to share the desktop’s internet connection via windows ICS. (this way I could use the laptop while my wife is using the desktop or vice versa). At that time I had zone alarm pro on both computers and everything worked fine.
When I got the vista box I was unable to get the networking between the laptop and the desktop to work properly so I gave up and manage with just one computer. The ethernet switch is not connected anymore to anything. I also no longer have zone alarm pro (Wanted to save money, my free updates ran out and I would have needed an update for it to work on vista). Windows firewall is on.
I also have avast free antivirus – do you or anyone else here know whether that is reliable?
It happened again this morning and I did ipconfig before and after the reboot and the ip address was unchanged. (I assume you are referring to the IPv4 address, not the subnet mask or default gateway?)
I’ll download spybot search and destroy, I used to have it but then stopped because I realized I have no way of knowing if its legit or if its full of its own spyware and trojans like the screensavers etc that you mentioned above. But if you trust it, I’ll download it again – you obviously know your stuff. I’ll also ask cablevision for a new modem. (BTW, I only have internet with them not cable TV or phone service).
Any particular router you’d recommend that’s not too expensive but does the job properly?