# Thomson Speedtouch 536 Modem



## Beehive (Jan 8, 2008)

Good afternoon from a newbie, I hope I'm posting this in the correct place.

I have a Win XP PC connected to a DSL line with a Thomson Speedtouch 536 modem by ethernet cable. There is no problem with this.

I then connected my Win XP laptop to this modem via usb cable, installing the correct drivers which were emailed to me from Speedtouch.

Unfortunately after a couple of hours the connection to the laptop just dies. When I check the Speedtouch page using the PC, I see the two computers connected, the main one - Ethernet is connected at 100Mbps but the laptop - usbport has just 12Mbps in brackets. 

If I check the details it usually says 
Status: Active
Type: Generic (or Laptop Computer which I changed it to to see if it helped)
Connected to: usbport (USB)

Addressing 
Physical Address: 00:90:d0:05:d4:45 
IP Address Assignment: DHCP 
IP Address: 192.168.1.64 
Always use the same address: No 
DHCP Lease Time: 0 days, 18:11:20 (this counts down from 24)

The connection often returns later in the day of it's own accord but why does it drop in the first place? and for a number of hours at a time.

Thank you if anybody is able to provide the solution to this.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Quite frankly, I have a very low opinion of USB for networking. I'd buy a $10 Ethernet switch and forget the USB. http://www.microbarn.com/details.aspx?rid=101727&source=pricewatch


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## Beehive (Jan 8, 2008)

Thank you for your experience. As I'm in England I'll look around for one of these, perhaps Maplins or somewhere similar would have one.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

They're very common, almost any place that has networking stuff will have a simple Ethernet switch.


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