Recurring Wi-Fi problem [extra-weird]

I have a recurring problem with every windows and WiFi network I connect to.

Some time after installation of a new system (be it XP32 or Windows 7 64bit) I lose connection with the internet.
I will explain it on a ping example:
1. After system startup I start pinging some major internet website with –t
2. Ping goes fine for 20 seconds or three minutes and then it is starting to time out
3. I switch my laptop wifi on and off, but that makes no difference
4. I change the Wifi’s MAC and I can ping again but just for another minute or so, then satiation reoccurs.
5. I change WiFi drivers and it’s the same thing.
6. I scan my system with Nod32 and Avira (both updated) and find nothing wrong.

Now, let’s add some more confusion, shall we?
I. All the time I can ping the Wifi router with no problems
II. It happens to every wifi I connect to
III. Other laptops connected to the same networks never have this problem
IV. It is driver and system idependent
V. Most of the time, even if I loose ability to ping, torrent or browse www, I can still connect to my Instant Messaging network (jabber doesn't work but GaduGadu does).
VI. It can happen all day long and then go away for a day or a week.
VII. Nobody else is using my laptop

I am not using any software or hardware firewall. And even when I enable windows firewall, this thing occurs anyway.

 

Sounds like your ISP is cutting off packets from your MAC address, probably because the constant pinging is being interpreted as a ping attack on the target machine. That would explain why you can change MAC and continue pinging, but sooner or later that MAC gets shut down, too. It would also explain why other laptops don't have any problems of the same sort. That would also explain why you can still ping your local router (and probably any other machine connected to the same subnetwork as you - those packets never leave the subnetwork and thus would never be blocked by whatever software your ISP is deploying.

Finally, depending on the particular IM protocol used by GaduGadu, that protocol may still be passed on through even though all other traffic is being blocked (jabber uses the XMPP protocol, since that service gets blocked as well, I would infer that either your jabber client is using HTTP Transport, which would carry your MAC address in the packets, thereby making them vulnerable to whatever blocking software is being used, or else the jabber client identifies users by MAC address, which would also make your jabber packets vulnerable to blocking).

GaduGadu uses its own proprietary protocol, and identifies users by "unique serial numbers" which, I would also infer, are not the same as the user's MAC address, which would explain why your GaduGadu packets are getting through even when nothing else is getting through.

Lastly, the fact that this happens with every network you connect to would imply that you are running afoul of a commonly-used blocking software, used not only by your ISP but also by the ISPs of those other networks.

 

If that was the ISP it wouldn't be so weird. But it isn't the ISPs.
Those are ADSL connections with home WiFi routers which I can administrate.
Hence, there are no blocked MACs, no ping protection and no running afoul.

 

Any other ideas?

 

I don't think you got the point. The blocking isn't occuring at the local wireless router level, or at the ADSL modem level, but somewhere between the ISP side of the ADSL modem and the last server controlled by your ISP that your packets pass through before they pass on to third-party servers.

Let me give you an example. I just ran a tracert to notebookreview.com, and got the following results:

Step (1), IP 192.168.1.1, is my local wireless router - the first bit of hardware an outgoing signal from my computer sees.

Step (2), IP 74.73.128.1, is the first server controlled by my ISP sitting on the ISP side of my cable modem.

Steps (3) - (6) all represent servers that are controlled by my ISP (TimeWarner, which is also RoadRunner, or nyc.rr.com).

Step (7) represents the first non-TimeWarner server my tracert packets have encountered, and is thus the first outbound system on which I can reliably state that my ISP, TimeWarner, is not in a position to do anything to my outgoing packets.

That, however, leaves five machines controlled by my ISP, that sit outside my cable modem, through which my outbound packets must pass, and any one of which could be running a filtering application that would silently drop any packet(s) of mine that violated any of my ISP's policies.

I am quite sure that if you run a similar tracert from your system to a third-party server (if you're going to actually try, shoot for NBR just so that we have some comparability), you will see that your packets pass through several servers controlled by your ISP that sit on the ISP-side of your ADSL modems. Any one of those servers could be hosting a filtering app that is blocking packets coming from your local system that appear to be a ping attack on some remote system. Further, since all of those systems lie on the ISP-side of your ADSL modem, none of the blocking software would have any effect on any packets you sent to either your local wifi router or your ADSL modem, because those packets would be addressed to your local subnetwork, and would therefore (a) reach their intended target before passing on to your ISP's machines, and (b) in any event would not get sent outside your local subnetwork, because the IP address belongs to that subnetwork, which means that the addressee is also on that subnetwork, so the packets would never get sent out to your ISP's servers in the first place.

If you think about it, it's in the ISP's own interest to block things that look like ping attacks or other types of attacks coming from the ISP's own IP addresses, because no ISP wants to get a reputation as being a friendly place for cyber-attackers.

 

Do the above please as shyster1 has asked and post. After that try a direct connection to the Modem and run the test (take the router out). This will tell us where your problem is like your network or modem or ISP.

Right now it could be Upstream and downstream SNR Margin (Signal to Noise Ratio), Upstream and downstream Transmit Power, modem operation performance, router, and weird as it may be even your telephone wiere(DSL) or cable line. I am just throwing ideas out but can be lots of things.

 

I would be interested to know why you need to run a ping -t for so long that your ISP cuts them out.