Disconnection Reason?

[Flash]

This mystifies me at the moment. I connect to the internet often through my University because it costs 6p per hour. The thing is it often just disconnects me randomly and recently it has the habit of disconnecting, then reconnecting for a couple of minutes and then disconnecting again. This can continue for up to an hour. I have discovered that shutting down my machine and restarting it can often solve this problem and I can reconnect again and be happy for another hour. My question is, what does the shutting down do to my PC that makes it ok? Does some temporary file get removed? I obviously can't prove this as the reason but it has been working so far. Please help me so that I can remove the file manually or alter the culprit setting, it is costing me a small fortune and it very annoying to boot.
Thanks in advance,
Flash

[smokin1]

Does it have a disconnect after a certain amount of lag time?...maybe you are running up against that...reading a file beyond the
shut down timer...
one possibility...

[Axel]

Flash - does this sequence of events happen at a certain time of day?

We in the telecom industry have a concept called "the maintenance window" typically between 1 and 3:30 AM local time during which system functions and upgrades are performed. I'd expect server reboots and resets to happen at that time as well as hub resets. That might explain it.

Another thing might be, if you are dialing into the network through a modem, that you caught a bad modem in the modem pool which needs to be replaced. Two possibilities come to mind - note the connection times when this happens in the hopes that the IT folks there have a log file of connections and can trace down and replace the modem.
Otherwise - call up the IT people when it happens and ask them if they can trace the bad modem on the spot to remove it from the pool.

They may simply need to reset their modems on a more agressive schedule. I've seen small modem pools hang and exhibit bad connections in a high-volume environment. Sometimes all they need is a reset to clear a previous connection problem - sometimes it takes a custom set-up, sometimes - it takes a replacement.