Is my router losing its mind?

[Hayduke]

I've had a two computer network running for over a year now with no trouble. Suddenly I click on a page in Ebay with Internet Explorer and BAM I loose my connection. My router lights start flashing errors. I open winipcfg and do a release and renew and I get my connection back. I go back to Ebay and same thing happens on the same pages. Every time on both computers. No other site is doing this and it doesn't happen from another computer I tried (not on my network). Haven't tried other browsers yet but that's next. I tried power off rebooting on all components several times. No change.

My setup:
SMC7004VBR router, Toshiba cable modem, two Windows computers running SMC NICs. I've seen this lost connection before a time or two but its never been so severe or repeatable. Almost like a java bug or something is bombing my router. I ran virus scans, spyware scans and disk scans. Nothing. Any ideas?

[electromagnetic]

Set a static IP.

[stan03]

Originally posted by electromagnetic
Set a static IP.

why would that affect just one webpage? and doesn't that cost alot of extra money?

[BGPatterson]

No on your net cards. That way they will always have the same address set.

[Hayduke]

I tried setting static IPs but I can't get it to work for some reason. I set my TCP/IP protocol in Windows with my selected IP as 192.168.2.16 with gateway as 192.168.2.1 then setup my router to disable DHCP. Network address is 192.168.2.1. Subnet masks are all 255.255.255.0. This setup won't work. Isn't the network address and default gateway the same IP? What am I missing?


Also I tried updating my router's firmware. Now I really have problems! Internet access is basically non-existant. I can't even go back to my previous setup. The SMC "upgrade" appears to have fried things permamently. I still have LAN access but internet access is dead. I get a connect indication with my browser but no downloading of data. Weird.

There is also definitely a problem with Ebay. There are hundreds of complaints over the past few months of defective pages. I've read of this same router problem too. With a direct-to-modem connection I get no errors of any kind. Plug the router in and - dead. Every time.