Idle VPN connection problem (Vista, XP)

I can say that I know a lot about networking and have a great experience, done many complicated networking things and now I have nothing on a recent problem with VPN.

Vista VPN incoming connection is set on my notebook on a wireless behind a router which updates an url through dyndns and forwards all VPN traffic to that notebook. I connect to that url from my work with a XP notebook on a wired connection. Plain and simple.

1. I connect through VPN over my dynamically updated url. Works.
2. I ping the server through the VPN tunnel - it works (after 5-10 secs btw).
3. I leave it idle for a different amounts of time (5, 10, 15 minutes sometimes even 30 mins) and suddenly it stops responding. No ping or any traffic over VPN anymore. It happens even with a connected RDC (Remote Desktop Client) session (idle)! VPN is still connected, but no traffic. If I use VPN with pings or RDC (using my remote desktop) it would be connected for hours - no issues whatsoever.

Client is XP, server is Vista. I tried changing all idle settings I could find. I disabled all power management (even in NIC driver) on VPN server (my notebook BTW). Now is it perhaps that my XP client somehow kills VPN traffic? I haven't checked it yet.

Another thing - if I connect with RDC only - it works flawlessly for hours. It is obviously a VPN issue.

I googled many specialized sites, and many people seem to ask help, but I still haven't found the solution. Is there anything else you would try?

Cheers,

Ivan

 

are you run newest remote desktop client?

 

Well I use Vista's RDC. I guess it is the newest. But I believe the problem is with VPN, not RDC. RDC works flawlessly.

 

I think it is fixed. My ISP upgraded the ADSL speed and while I was checking it I found a bug in my router that made me hard restart it and reconfigure everything from scratch and now the VPN problem seems to be fixed!

Heh I will never know all, but at least now I know more.

Ivan