sounds like a problem Ive been having...lemme ask you a couple of questions...
1- Does this seem to happen most often when a large amount of traffic is passing through the r0outer...like while using a p2p program (shareaza, edonkey, gnutella), downloading via IRC, bittorrent, or similar situations like transferring files to/from the internet (vpn to your job, FTP)??
2- Do you also have to turn your cable modem or DSL modem on & off along with the router in order to regain connectivity?
if so...while you have no connectivity, do the cable modem or DSL modem's lights seem normal and connected despite you being unable to get out? and do your hard-wired and/or wireless PC's seem to be connected to the router just fine according to network status (icon in system tray if icon is set to appear) despite innability to communicate with router via ping or http??
3- While connectivity is lost, do you also find that you are unable to even bring up the router's management page via your web browser (which shouldnt happen regardless of ability to see the internet or whatever network you are uplinking to on the exterior of the router)??
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if so, see if changing the settings on the p2p application or whatever application that generates the traffic to make it/them communicate with fewer remote computers at once, or Download/upload fewer files at once, even if the fewer files or fewer remote computers take up just as much bandwith as the greater amount did before...
also, call your ISP's tech support and describe the issue...even if they arent very knowledgable and their equiptment/service isnt responsible, its likely that theyve recieved other calls from people with similar issues, who were perhaps using a similar router supplied by the ISP (most ISP's now offer routers for a flat or monthly fee)...if theyve dealt with the issue before from other customers and have kept adequate notes in their helpdesk software archives, they can perhaps tell you whats causing the issue, even if they cannot tell you how to fix it.
Also, if you havent already tested various settings on the router, do so...first, start by resetting to factory defaults (Im sure youve already tried and are rolling your eyes while reading this, but hear me out)...test it at factory default settings (making only absolutely needed changes if you have to in order to get it working) with one wired client (to eliminate wireless variables from your testing)...
then, systematically turn off the router's features one at a time (firewall, DHCP, etc) testing thoroughly before and after every change.
Once you get down to the router's bare-bones features and functionality, and if the router is still working great after throrough testing, try loading on the traffic in and out...go to fast sites with huge downloads (downloading service packs that you dont need from microsoft works great...so does finding a bandwidth speed test site that works by having you download a 100MB or so junk file and measuring the speed...try to find one thats geographically and topographically close to you, preferable on your same ISP and within your city or county)...try to get as close to your ISP's peak bandwidth and hold it there for a good 15-30 minutes without a pause.
If it still works, try loading on heavy traffic to/from multiple sources...like by using a fast p2p client (bit torrent clients work great if you use popular & new torrents, Shareaza is good if you use it for Edonkey and download very popular files with hundreds of sources which are of a decent size)...for this type of testing, make sure that if you are running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you have the tweak installed that lets you have simultaneous IP traffic to/from much more than the 10 sources that SP2 limits you to...otherwise, you wont be able to run this type of multi-source traffic test. Sustain this type of heavy traffic to/from more than 50 simultaneous remote addresses for at least 20-30 minutes.
Remember to do some light web browsing while running the two tests.
if the router still works great, try disconnecting the router from the cable modem/DSL modem and using it simply as a local switch for your home network. Attach another PC via wire and test by transfering huge files back n forth (100MB at least)...then try the same test but transfer a thousand small files (like a huge directory structure full of photos or you mp3 collection)...always COPY and not MOVE incase the router or PC's crash so you dont lose/corrupt your files. Keep this up for a while.
If the router still doesnt drop, disconnect that 2nd PC, and reconnect the router to your ISP. start enabling services and features on the router (DHSP, Firewall, etc) one at a time, testing before & after each
if it still doesnt drop, try putting the computer in a DMZ on the router and testing like that...etc
you get the idea
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all this testing sounds like it would take a weekend to do, but its actually alot quicker...and thats assuming that you dont isolate the problem on the 1st or 2nd or 3rd test.
Best case scenario, you find and isolate the problem and find a fix for it or discover what went wrong to cause it...problem solved
Worst case scenario, you run through the gamut of testing and cannot recreate the issue no matter what you do (highly unlikely)...and even then, the idea here is to at least eliminate the router and those type of online activities as the culprit...so if you cannot recreate the problem after all of the above, you can eliminate all of those things as the cause. That will narrow your search for an answer a great great deal.
good luck and keep us informed
