My internet has been dropping and then coming back minutes later multiple times a day. The Internet provider says there is a piece of hardware causing an issue with IP addresses. Any idea what would cause that and/or what to do about it?

That could mean a couple different things depending on your setup.
Do you have your own local LAN with internet shared between several devices?
Or do you have only 1 computer which plugs directly into the modem?

What he’s describing sounds like a duplicate IP address on the network.
Now whether that is YOUR network (LAN) or HIS network (WAN) is the big question.

quote:

The Internet provider says there is a piece of hardware causing an issue with IP addresses.

Is he suggesting its their hardware or yours? And does the internet drop for 'all' your devices, or just one?

Insufficient detail for an accurate diagnosis.

If I had to guess, it smells like a routing issue with one of the ISP's routers (or peers) dropping your assigned IP, or the netblock it is in, from its table or BGP announcement, perhaps due to insufficient memory or excessive fragmentation (too many routes).

OK so a little more detail is needed:

Is it every device on your network, all losing internet at the same time? Or is it like your laptop that works for a while and then stops for a while, but seems like other items are fine?

E-mail inbound to you.

Sorry for the lack of information. This is what I have. I have cable Internet using the providers modem then I have a Netgear Nitehawk AC1900 model R7000 router. This router provides Wi-Fi for four phones, a couple of tablets, and a printer. I also have a ring alarm system with several cameras. Our smart TV, two xboxes, and a desktop computer are all run through cat 5 wires.

When the Wi-Fi drops, it drops for everything including the things that are hard wired in. When I said that the provider assumes it's a piece of hardware they assume it's a piece of our hardware. Sometimes it will come back on its own within a minute or 2 other times we have to reset the router. Thanks so much for your replies thus far.

Replace the modem.

quote:

Originally posted by parallel:
When the Wi-Fi drops, it drops for everything including the things that are hard wired in.

Rather than modem, sounds like the first thing this points to is the router since that's what you specify you're connected to when the issues occur. May not be a faulty router but could be just a setting in the router. On the other hand, try ethernet hard wiring something directly into the modem. Would be interesting to see if when you lose internet connectivity with those devices connected to the Wi-Fi router, you also lose connectivity on the device directly connected to the modem. Should help narrow down a possible modem or router problem.

Also, concerning Wi-Fi, sometimes the Wi-Fi channel is just too crowded. When that happens, it's usually in an apartment or office building environment where all the devices in the building are all using the same wireless router default channel, but could also happen in a neighborhood. It's not that anyone is also using your Wi-Fi without your knowledge, it's just the channel becomes crowded, causing interference, because everyone has their own Wi-Fi router, including you, set to the same wireless channel.

I was loosing connectivity from time to time on my 2.4GHz band. I went into my admin settings on my Wi-Fi router > Wireless Setup > Radio Setup and changed the channel from "Auto Select", to a specific channel that was assigned for my 2.4GHz and problem was corrected ... or greatly improved. Think I'm the only one in the neiborhood that uses a 2.4GHz channel other than a usual default channel. Channels 1,6 and 11 are said to be best for 2.4GHz but depending on other wireless networks in your vicinity, one of those channels might be a better option than the others and you could try switching around.

Maybe as a last resort, you could try removing ALL devices from the network, do a hard reset on both the modem and router, then connecting devices individually over a period of time to see if maybe one of the devices is causing connectivity issues. If you're unsure how to do a hard reset, contact your internet service provider for explanation how to reset the modem and consult your owners manual for the router or possibly "Help" in the admin access to the router via your browser. Hard resets will place the modem and router back into default conditions, erase any user settings as well as likely reset device passwords and possibly reset necessary settings for internet access via your service provider, so proceed with caution if doing a complete reset.

EDIT: When troubleshooting, I also try to think about what may have changed or what was I trying to do, since the last time when I had no problems or issues. I may not always have an answer because nothing may have changed or I wasn't messing with anything, but it could be one place to start. Was everything okay before you added that one last latest thing to your network or before you may have been messing around in the router admin settings, for instance.

Try this to determine if the problem is outside your house/network. Unplug 'your' Netgear router from 'their' modem and plug a PC directly into 'their' modem. See if the problem reoccurs. If it does, then the problem exists on their side in either 'their' modem/network. If it doesn't reoccur, then the problem may well be on your side. Something tells me you're going to find the problem is in the ISP's network.

Other key pieces of information that could help in a diagnosis:

Timing. How long is this outage (in seconds)? Is it always the same length of time, or does it vary? How often does it occur, and is it always at the same time(s) of day?

What is the status of the connection lights on the ethernet interfaces while this is happening? What is the administrative console on the cable modem and the router telling you? Does the cable modem have a "connected" light for its upstream (the cable side)? If so, is it changing status?

Do a series of pings, or, preferably, a traceroute when connected and not and examine the differences. Interfaces to be pinged include the router's LAN address (your default gateway), The router's address on the cable side, the immediate upstream address (the cable provider's head end), and an arbitrary external address such as Google or your favorite bandwidth checking site. Specify the IP not the name to eliminate DNS resolution delays as an issue. A simple shell script can expedite this checking so it takes seconds to do.

If resetting the router helps every time you need a new router.

The ping and tracert will help pinpoint the problem.

If it was on their end, resting the router would not solve the problem.

You are either at over capacity on your internal network or the router is beginning to die.

My nighthawk died and I replaced it with a TP-Link mesh.

Mesh is the wave of the future.

https://bestreviews.com/best-mesh-wifi-systems

I have the TP-Link Deco.

My router used to do this. Replace the router.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Try this to determine if the problem is outside your house/network. Unplug 'your' Netgear router from 'their' modem and plug a PC directly into 'their' modem. See if the problem reoccurs. If it does, then the problem exists on their side in either 'their' modem/network. If it doesn't reoccur, then the problem may well be on your side. Something tells me you're going to find the problem is in the ISP's network.

I'm a fan of this type of troubleshooting. Try to cut the problem in half. If you're plugged directly into the cable modem and you still don't have Internet access the problem is on your ISP's side.

Depending on the brand of your cable modem, you may be able to open a browser to access it at http://192.168.100.1 and that might give you a bit more information.

When we had cable for Internet access we had similar issues and it turned out that the cable outside the house needed to be replaced. The page mentioned above gave enough diagnostic information for the cable company to roll a truck (although I'd think they'd be able to access similar information directly as well).

quote:

Originally posted by ShouldBFishin:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Try this to determine if the problem is outside your house/network.

I'm a fan of this type of troubleshooting.
Try to cut the problem in half.

It is the only way if you are a professional.
The biggest problem I have helping remote IT client is insufficient and incomplete evidence.
A lot of that here in the forum too so you have to keep asking questions, wait for the answer then move on to the more probable result.
The repeat and repeat ~ it is why it hard to solve problem here on the forum.
Too many times here some says "This is working" only to get "replace this or buy this brand".
Yet "this isn't working" isn't very descriptive and "replace this" may not even have anything to do with the problem.

Modems are cheap, so if yours is old just replace it if there's any chance it could be the router. If you're not sure, replace it anyway.

If your Router is new-ish it's probably OK. If it's old as dirt, replace the router first, then the modem if that doesn't fix it.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
Modems are cheap, so if yours is old just replace it if there's any chance it could be the router. If you're not sure, replace it anyway.

If your Router is new-ish it's probably OK. If it's old as dirt, replace the router first, then the modem if that doesn't fix it.

If you read the Ops initial post, I believe the modem belongs to the ISP, so if it eventually gets replaced, the ISP will have to do it. But until the Op can isolate where specifically the problem exists (i.e inside or outside his network), replacing anything is wasting time and money IMO.