Question : ping failing on 2nd hop

A networking newbie question:

I'm troubleshooting my Internet connectivity on a DSL router with a wireless router (Linksys WRT54G). Recently, the Internet throughput seemed pretty slow and yesterday it pretty much stopped completely.

Have tried the normal restarts of the modem and router to no avail and am now connecting directly to the modem.

When I plug into the modem and ping a URL, I get one hop (e.g., "www-east.aol.com" for aol.com and the rest fail.

What does that mean? In my experience, a ping either fails or succeeds.

Thanks.

Answer : ping failing on 2nd hop

You mentioned that you pinged a site... however saying that one "hop" succeeds seems to imply you ran a traceroute instead. Which are you using? Knowing what hop your packets are getting dropped on should show us where the problem lies (or at least point us in the right direction). If you are not using traceroute, give it a try: tracert aol.com

The WRT54G is notorious for getting overwhelmed with open connections, especially if you torrent. However, if you have already tried power cycling both it and the modem to no avail, the the problem may be with you ISP. Have you tried contacting them about this issue? You might want to also ask around to see if any of your neighbors are experiencing a similar issue.

The issue could also be with the PC itself. Do you have any other devices you can plug into to verify it's not the PC?