Complete Stop (Again)

[#1]

The problem I mentioned in https://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,113754.msg978667.html#msg978667 has just happened again.
I was browsing along OK until about 12:45 when everything came to a complete halt; no pages would load and I was getting tracerts like these:
Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.68]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    2 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2  272 ms  194 ms  318 ms  lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185
]
  3    32 ms    33 ms    33 ms  link1-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [84.93.249.96]
  4    32 ms    39 ms    32 ms  52.core.plus.net [212.159.1.52]
  5    32 ms    32 ms    32 ms  ae2.pcl-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.6]
  6    32 ms    33 ms    32 ms  ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.0]
  7    32 ms    32 ms    33 ms  kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
  8    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  9    *        *        *    Request timed out.
10    32 ms    32 ms    32 ms  ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
11    33 ms    36 ms    42 ms  132.185.255.148
12    33 ms    33 ms    32 ms  bbc-vip113.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.68]
Trace complete.
C:\Users\Win7pro>tracert www.plus.com
Tracing route to portal.plus.net [212.159.9.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2    35 ms    32 ms    33 ms  lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185
]
  3    32 ms    35 ms    32 ms  link8-central10.pcl-gw02.plus.net [84.93.249.110
]
  4    32 ms    32 ms    32 ms  te2-2.ptw-gw01.plus.net [212.159.1.54]
  5    33 ms    32 ms    32 ms  po2.pcl-gw01.plus.net [195.166.129.41]
  6    40 ms    40 ms    39 ms  gi5-8.ptp-cr01.plus.net [84.93.224.48]
  7    41 ms    40 ms    54 ms  vlan2658.ptp-elb02.plus.net [84.93.224.45]
  8    41 ms    40 ms    42 ms  portal.plus.net [212.159.9.2]
Trace complete.
C:\Users\Win7pro>tracert www.channel4.com
Tracing route to www.channel4.com [83.98.28.10]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2    33 ms    34 ms    32 ms  lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185
]
  3    32 ms    32 ms    33 ms  link7-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [84.93.249.108
]
  4    32 ms    32 ms    32 ms  52.core.plus.net [212.159.1.52]
  5    33 ms    58 ms    33 ms  ae1.ptw-cr02.plus.net [195.166.129.2]
  6    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  7    33 ms    33 ms    33 ms  tfm20-edge-asr-a.ioko.net [83.98.99.133]
  8    40 ms    38 ms    35 ms  83.98.99.26
  9    *        *        *    Request timed out.
10    *        *        *    Request timed out.
11    *        *        *    Request timed out.
12    *        *        *    Request timed out.
13    *        *        *    Request timed out.
14    *        *        *    Request timed out.
15    *        *        *    Request timed out.
16    *        *        *    Request timed out.
17    *        *        *    Request timed out.
18    *        *        *    Request timed out.
19    *        *        *    Request timed out.
20    *        *        *    Request timed out.
21    *        *        *    Request timed out.
22    *        *        *    Request timed out.
23    *        *        *    Request timed out.
24    *        *        *    Request timed out.
25    *        *        *    Request timed out.
26    *        *        *    Request timed out.
27    *        *        *    Request timed out.
28    *        *        *    Request timed out.
29    *        *        *    Request timed out.
30    *        *        *    Request timed out.

I even had trouble logging in to the router (although that did let me in after about 40 seconds). Other than that, the trace seems to have problems once it gets beyond plusnet's nodes.
After about 10 minutes, the problem seemed to clear again.
Unlike the last time, the connection didn't drop just before the problem started, and so I didn't try gateway hopping.
Any thoughts?

[#2]

What springs to mind are :
An old router?
How hot is the router?
Are you running any kind of p2p download?  maybe its swamping it, try lowering the maximum connections in the p2p client

[#3]

Router is a Netgear DG834v3, about six years old.
Not running more than slightly warm.
No other downloads.

[#4]

Those traceroutes all look fairly normal. Some nodes won't respond to traceroute.

[#5]

I get timeouts on traceroutes or pings to www.channel4.com but the webpage loads fine and 4oD plays without buffering using Firefox on the same computer. 4oD has given problems in the past but others posted about it in comments. So I didn't think the problem was simply for my access.
I don't think traceroute timeouts here are indicative of a problem.

[#6]

OK, this has just happened again (about 21:13 this evening).
I couldn't get any pages to load in Firefox, IE or Chrome. I couldn't even open the router control panel, although I could both ping and tracert it. I was able to tracert external sites as well, but nothing would load.
A download I had running in Orbit also completely stalled.
I checked the cable from the PC (Win 7 Pro) to the router. All seemed OK.
I have a second PC connected to the router (Netgear DG834v3) running XP Pro, so I fired that up.
That loaded pages with no problem. The two PCs are networked to each other via the router, and the XP machine could access the Win 7 one and vice versa.
After about 50 minutes, the Win 7 machine could load pages again, but as I've been typing this, the problem has come back the same as before; the Win 7 machine won't load anything again. As before, the two machines have no problem communicating with each other via the router.
If the router is allowing tracerts and pings out, and is connecting the two PCs networked through it OK, what's stopping the Win 7 machine from working properly when the XP one does?

[#7]

Quote from: thejudge

what's stopping the Win 7 machine from working properly when the XP one does????

Some sort of over-zealous security software, perhaps? Try disabling any firewall software on the Win 7 PC when this happens and see if that helps.

[#8]

Quote

Some sort of over-zealous security software, perhaps?

That's what I'm thinking too, let us know what you're Antivirus/firewall set up is like.
Adam

[#9]

I don't have a software firewall - it's in the router. I did check when I got home this afternoon, though, in case a Windows Update or some other sneak attack from Redmond, Wa. had activated Windows Firewall. Answer in the negative.
The router firewall settings are the same for both machines, as far as I can see.
AV is Avast! which, to my knowledge, has never been set to block anything except what you'd expect it to block.
Windows Defender is in 'real-time protection' mode, and has been since I bought this rig back in November.
I'm going to keep an eye on things this evening to see what happens.
Thanks for the advice so far.

[#10]

Hmmm...interesting....
Just after posting the previous update, I opened Orbit Downloader to download a file.
The problem returned immediately.
I have now uninstalled Orbit (to be honest, in these broadband days, does anyone really need programs like that?), and the problem has cleared...for the moment.
Monitoring continues....

[#11]

TBH I've not personally needed to use a download manager in over 10 years

[#12]

Well, 24 hours on and no problems since. 
Looking at Orbit's forum (once I'd got through all the spam posts!), it seems that I wasn't the only one with that issue.