<font color=skyblue>Sometimes when I walk away from the PC for a long time and leave myself "logged in", when I finally come back, I see that the cable internet has gone offline. So I thought that maybe I would log off first, then walk away, but when I log back in when I return, only half the time will the internet be online. I have to remedy this by restarting the PC.

I have tried refreshing the router, but that works only 10% of the time. Does anyone know why this happens or what I can do to fix it? I am pretty sure it is only the router that is causing the "time-out" episode...because I never had this problem before. I am running XP.

Any ideas? Besides telling me to refresh, because that is not working. </font>

Some routers shut down after a period of inactivity, and then are supposed to come back up when you try and use the net again.

Look for a timeout setting in your router configuration.

<font color=skyblue>I do not see that option anywhere. </font>