Ok guys, here is a problem which may take some time to comprehend if you have ANY questions just ask me and i will clarify, I know this is going to be tough so i drew a diagram to help you out....
A little background info: we bought our house about 2 months ago, it is fully capable of being hardwired for networking, the only problem is, some rooms only have 1 jack so it can either be phone, or internet. There are 5 bedrooms total on the network. 1 is wireless, 4 are wired. There are 2 routers, reason being my moms office is where the modem is, and she only has 1 jack she wants phone and internet, the other is in the main room where all the wires meet. So here is the dilema:

Every now and again, maybe 4-5 times aday, no particular pattern, the internet goes down, but its not necessarily that, if im on aim i can still talk, but i cant go on IE, its almost like it loses power. Now it happens when only my comp is online, when 2 are on, every possible combination there is, so its not that we are exceeding bandwith. Ive noticed the simple solution is going all the way to my moms room and unplugging the router and plugging it back in. (Unplugging the modem doesnt work) so i know its not the line, and its not the computers because they ALL go down. So i unplug the router plug it back in and WHAM it all works. Now my dad is on wireless becuase the router is close to him and he needs the jack for business, so i dont think its a problem with the line, even though the upload for the 2nd router goes all the way back to the main area.

FAQ
1) Q- Have you tried a new router?
A - No i havent, im waiting to see if this can be resolved otherwise
2) Q - Have you tried updating the firmware of the router?
A- Yes I have latest version
3) Q - Have you tried taking out the router and plugging the upload in BR 1 Directly to the wall?
A- No I havent

I'm sure a couple of these might narrow it down,but my mom and dad cant afford to be down from internet for long to trial and error. So what are you suggestions, do i have a bad router? Thanks alot

If you can still chat on AIM, it sounds to me like your router is a possible source of the problems, but in my experience the least likely source. AIM I'm pretty sure does most of its connections over IP. I don't think it uses any sort of DNS. This would make me think that you're having trouble resolving DNS names.

Do ALL of your machines have problems, or is it just your computer that has issues when this occurs? And does rebooting a machine help its symptoms? I can't tell the scale of your house from the diagram, but keep in mind that roughly 300ft is the typical accepted max length for a single span of cat5. I'd find it hard to believe you'd surpassed that, but it's worth a mention.

When you see this occur, can you traceroute to a place by location name? How about the same place by IP? That might give you some clues where to look. Might see if something like Windows file sharing between computers still works.

Based on what you've given us, I'd say the router is a definate possibility. But unless I missed something, I think we really need some more details before we can help you any more. Hope this helps in some way.

What type of router is it?

If the net goes down and you can't ping your router anymore, then you know what to blame.

My router crashes every week, I'm quite used to it (yes, I have the latest firmware and I have bugged their curtomer support about it too).

The switch functionality is OK, the machines on the LAN can communicate. Internet connection is down and I can't acces the router configuration interface.

I suppose it can be some glitch in router configuration, I'm trying to pinpoint the problem right now, but it takes time since you have to wait for some days before another crash.

router is a netgear mr314 or something its a 4 port wireless router... I dont think i can access the router, but then again i cant recall when it goes down again ill try that, otherwise my house is very big (not to brag) but its roughly 6000 sq ft. It isnt just my machine having problems, every machine has the problem, and rebooting doesnt help.

Assuming it is the fact that I am surpassing 300 ft, would it do this, or would it not work at all, I mean would it just randomly go down, or would i not even be able to start a connection?

If you're WAY over the 300ft length, you'll probably never establish a TCP/IP connection. If you're right around, results can vary. 300 is a very rough guideline. You could have some of your packets making the router just in time, and others just failing. I imagine your symptoms would be quite different if this were the case.

Also, you mention that all machines go down when this happens. This REALLY makes me think that the router is involved in some fashion, possibly the modem too, but being over 300ft would affect particular machines most likely as opposed to the whole network.

I would check out Rick's suggestions, as well as see if LAN capabilities still exist when this happens. If the LAN's going down, the problem being with the Router is much more likely. The potential for this to be a matter of security policies still exists, too. I'd say it's even much more likely that it's security policies run amok if LAN works, but you're losing TCP/IP functionality.

Another thing you might try is get a packet sniffer, and watch the traffic coming into your machine around network crash time- this might provide hints. You might find out you're getting a broadcast storm of some type that's shutting things down, or a corrupt packet, or whatever. Who knows?

Good luck, let us know.

ok so i noticed today it went down, and I could still access remote config from different machines around the network... Also to add my dads comp is on wireless and he loses connection too, so this leads me to beleive that it is a problem with a router....

I firmly believed that the problem arises from the modem. I m currently using a D-Link DSL-504, from time to time I experience similar loss in connections and nd to shutdown my pcs and router to regain conneciton though my two pcs are less than 1ft apart. I'm planning to phone up my ISP(i got my router from them) for technical support this weekend.