Continuing to have router issues

If I didn't shave my head, I'd be pulling out hair by now. The same router problems I've had on and off for 2-3 years now just won't go away. The only time they cease is when I give up and just resort to bypassing the router by plugging each computer directly into the cable modem one at a time, depending on which PC I need to use. Inconvenient? **** yes.

My router, a Linksys BEFW11S4, just won't work right with my mmorpg. I have tried other routers, including a cheap switch and a NetGear router. And another Linksys, previously. I'm no fan of Linksys in general but I don't want to go out and buy yet another router because I know it won't fix the problem.

There aren't really many other connection issues. Everything from standard web browsing and torrenting to printing over the LAN works fine. But my mmorpg won't run well. It faces random, but consistent disconnections after a while of playing, with an error message suggesting that the software cannot connect to the server via the UDP ports it wants to use.

I think the problem is with port forwarding, but that's just my uneducated hunch. The game uses wide ranges of UDP ports. I've made sure to open up everything in the router that I could think of. Whether I am using wired or wireless has no effect on this issue.

Is there any way, any software that monitors network activity to such detail that it could provide me with a once-and-for-all idea as to what the heck is causing this?

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Hello, World!

I'd try forwarding the range of ports it uses from the modem to the hub then the hub to your computer. Im not much of a networking guru.

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I'd also make sure that the ports are being forwarded to the PC that you think they are. Unless you specifically assign a computer an IP via the router's settings, it may give the computer a different one each time you plug it in.

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Core,
Which game are you trying to play? Most modern games support UPnP and will have your router automatically open the correct ports for you.
However I've had luck on my Linksys (WRT54G) in the past by going into the Port Forwarding tab and setting up a range of ports to be forwarded to my PC. Its inelegant but it works-just make sure you tell the router to forward both UDP and TCP packets-by default it will just do TCP.

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I had previously set up port forwarding within my Linksys router's limited settings (the game I am trying to play is FFXI and it uses a rather wide range of ports) and even DMZ'd the IP of my laptop to try and help it along, to no avail.

On your suggestion I looked into it and found a UPnP setting in my game's settings and enabled it. I am running the game over the network again and will update this once I know how it's behaving. But so far thanks for helping. If this doesn't fix it then perhaps I'll post screenshots of my router's config, the network's configuration and whatever else I can think of. I really want to get this running smoothly.

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Hello, World!

Well, it's still disconnecting me, every 15 minutes or so. I don't know what to do now. I guess I could buy a new router but I hesitate to do so in case the problems just continue even with the new one.

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Hello, World!

According to Microsoft you need to go into the router to enable UPnP-its not on by default.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...sBEFW11S4.mspx
Basically it says to go under the Password tab in your router and click the checkbox next to Enable UPnP to turn it on.

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That is correct.. And I've done that.

What it does is, it lets me connect to the game but then it drops connection to the server (but not otherwise) just long enough for me to ping out, about every 15 minutes or sometimes more frequently. I don't understand what the problem could be. I mean I assume it's an issue with a port not getting opened or something but I don't see why it would be...what with UPnP enabled and even DMZ set up for my laptop's IP, and port fwding on top of it.

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Hello, World!