Quickly, the end solution was to buy a new router and temporarily remove the battery from our Motorola modem.

In detail...

I had a 5 year old Linksys router that started getting flaky and figured it was time to try a new one - the Linksys WRT54GS.

I couldn't get the thing installed manually, so I broke down, inserted the CD and it worked.... for a little while.

In the days that followed, I would intermittently lose internet connectivity. I continuously had access to my network - I just couldn't keep a connection to the internet. Sometimes I'd lose the connection every 10-30 minutes. Sometimes hours. Apparently I wasn't the only one - lots of others had issues as well. I tried every conceivable solution and nothing seemed to fix the issue. Seemed like the overwhelming consensus was to get another router.

So I went back to BestBuy and came back with a Linksys WRT54G2. (At least it's prettier.) But dang it, I could-not-get-this-thing installed. Again, trying every conceivable solution out there.

The one solution that wasn't mentioned involved the modem. We have a Motorola SBV5220 cable modem with battery backup.

And that was really the problem... the battery backup - because just unplugging the thing to reset it was not enough. You have to unplug it AND take out the battery. When I unplugged it, all the lights went out and came back on when I plugged it back in. But apparently that wasn't enough. The battery must be removed as well.

Two to three weeks later we haven't had any issues at all.

I realize getting a new router may not be the ideal solution, but in the end, it was the only solution to ending the intermittent connection problems for me and, apparently, many, many others.

Now if I could just get the Xbox 360 to find Media Center.

It's always something.