How do I keep my computer connected to the internet for longer?

February 10, 2008 12:32 AM

How do I keep my computer connected to the internet for longer when it is idle?

I have a Mac osx. I have dial-up. When I am on the internet, if I leave the computer idle for more than 10 minutes, the internet disconnects. I've poked around, checked out 'system preferences', and haven't found anything to change this setting.

posted by lazy robot to computers & internet (5 comments total)

See the second subhead: "Disconnect if idle for __ minutes enabled?"
posted by D.C. at 12:46 AM on February 10

What D.C. said, although there's also a slim chance that your ISP is set up to drop calls after a period of inactivity, so if the above doesn't work you could try calling them or looking for a dialup FAQ.

eponysterical!
posted by whir at 1:35 AM on February 10

I'm guessing it is your ISP, this is pretty common for dialup, they have a limited number of modems to dial to, they don't want one tied up by someone who is off running errands.

Try keeping a mail program running that checks for mail every 5 minutes, it will log activity and might keep it from being disconnected (if, in fact, it is the isp that is causing this).
posted by HuronBob at 8:51 AM on February 10

You could set a cron job to ping a cnn.com every 5 minutes.
posted by spatula at 11:31 AM on February 10

You can do it without a cron job. Just open a Terminal window and type something like:

ping -i 300 www.google.com

That would be a 5-minute interval.

Now maybe for some the cron job would be more convenient, but I'm guessing anyone asking this question would not be in that category.
posted by dixie flatline at 3:19 PM on February 10