Totally baffled

Hi,
I hope someone here can help as I have exhausted all ideas.

I have been having a problem for quite some time now. Somehow, my public ip disappears from my NetSetMan display, and I am unable to browse. The only way I can get internet back is to reboot my system.

I am at the point where I think the problem is a hardware issue, but cannot find one.

I say this because I have the same problems with cable and DSL internet, and I had the problem using Vista Home Premium, and now with Windows 7 Professional. And it happens with wireless and hard-wired setups.

I thought maybe it was because of NetSetMan, but I have the problem using Windows network configuration, even with NetSetMan uninstalled. I thought for a while it was my cheap WBR 1310 D-Link router, so I replaced that with a 5000 series gaming router from D-Link (on SHAW cable) No luck. I now am using my Telus supplied GigaSet 576 DSL router on their system and having the same problems.

I have used static ip's, I have allowed automatic ip assigning. The problem persists no matter what I try, and the ONLY evidence that anything even happened, comes from my logs in my Gigaset 576 DSL router. I've started noting, if possible, the time that the internet crashes at and it seems to correspond to my router logs that say "Ethernet Link 1 down". I have not found anything else that might explain why this is happening, but am limited as far as knowledge of diagnostics.

If I only try resetting the router and configurations via NetSetMan or by rebooting router physically itself, I get no connection.

THE ONLY way to get everything to work is to reboot my laptop. Confusing.

I have spent a couple weeks on this using the vista forums, and now that I am onto Window 7 now, I thought maybe I would give this forum a try.

If anyone can help, any ideas. If anyone needs more info, please explain what it is and how to get it, and I would be happy to do so. Thanks in advance.:)

PS. I have made sure that neither adapter, wired or wireless, are set to "not sleep" in power management as well.

hmmm, no not right at the moment as I have moved and am waiting for stuff to get here, BUT, now that you say that, at my last place of residence, I had a 2 XP machines in my network, and neither one EVER suffered from the "internet drop". Meaning, when this machine would go down, I could still hop on one of the XP machines, and "surf"

I will see if I can borrow a laptop from someone and try though.

And thank you for the welcome.

what Firewall(s), antivirus, anti spyware programs do you use?

I use Spyware Doctor w/ AntiVirus.
I have Windows Defender turned off.
Windows firewall is active.