Once or twice a day, my windows 2000 machine loses
internet access. I have to turn off the switch to which it is
connected, wait about 10 seconds and then turn the switch on.
And then I regain access.

Loss of access means that I get the message from the
browser of no such address or not found.

I started running port monitor sniffer and found out that
when the computer loses the internet, the IP address
it uses for all outgoing packets
is 192.168.168.255. My computer's IP address is
192.168.168.253.

Anybody have any ideas of what is going on?

Sounds like what I had. It was an issue with my ISP, so you might want to ask them

please post your connection
like router?
you have static?
are more than one computers in the house using your connection?

Please give the following information:

1)Router

2)Switch

Is your Routers WAN interface connected to ISP Modem and the LAN interface of your Router definitely must be connected to a Switch and than the PC connected to Switch, right?

Is your computer geting TCP/IP configuration dynamically or statically?

Can you connect other computers to the same switch and see if these computers also loose internet access?

i had the same thing happen but then i ran scans 4 times and disabled my firewall and start Windows firewall again and it started slowly and then eventually to work fine again

the firewall and anti-virus i disabled was Symantec AntiVirus also i noticed while i was doing scan AVG found a few problems with Symantec AntiVirus and i told it to virus vault them so if that helps

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