About a month or so ago, my Belkin router started acting up. The internet always worked just fine, but the wireless capabilities seemed to be crapping out on me. I frequently started getting bumped off of Xbox Live, and what began as once in awhile turned into an everyday thing. I consider myself fairly tech-savvy but when it comes to networking, I'm honestly lost.
Resetting the router to factory defaults temporarily would solve the issue, but it turned into having to reset it at least once every day or so. I finally ended up going with a static IP address and using port-forwarding through my router to connect directly to the 360. This actually worked great for a few days but eventually it went right back to what it was doing. I started getting error messages saying that the ip address was already in use on my network and I'd basically need to change it. In typical windows fashion, I couldn't even access my Network and Sharing menu to make any changes, so finally I decided I'd simply do a clean format of the C: drive and start from scratch. I had quite a bit of crap taking up space that I haven't used in months anyways, so I figured I might as well.
Formatted the C: drive, reinstalled Windows Vista Home Premium, and downloaded all the recommended patches/hot fixes through Windows Update. Reinstalled the router, sticking with a dynamic ip this time, and it's still doing the same crap. Basically, every single day it needs to be fiddled around with before it'll work. 9 times out of 10, I can simply change the channel, and Xbox Live will fire right back up. So there's problem #1, now on to problem #2...
Since the format, I've began getting blue screens of death every few days. It usually seems to occur when I have the computer in stand-by/sleep mode. Sometimes I'll come back and it's restarted on it's own, and other times, I'll take it out of sleep mode and it will work fine for a minute or two until it inevitably locks up, and crashes. When it boots back up, it always mentions one of two things: A.) device driver issue with the Ethernet network. Windows claimed the latest driver was already installed, but upon checking the site, there was a newer one. Downloaded it, installed it, still no dice. or B.) Problem with the hard drive.
I noticed one of the "possible causes" it lists for the hard drive issues is related to transferring a large amount of files from an external source to the hard disk. Before formatting, I obviously saved all of my important files to my Samsung external HD, and then transferred all of it back to the system afterwards so I don't know if that may have something to do with it or not.
Anyways, all that being said, I was hoping some of you knowledgeable men and women around here could point me in the right direction. First off, should I just get a new router? I'd be more than happy to purchase a new one if someone thinks that's probably the issue. I've had it a little over two years now I believe, and it's been a good one up until now. Second, the ethernet network issues. Anyone able to offer me a little insight into the issue?
Thanks in advance guys!
