Wireless connection dropping

I run a small home network with 1 laptop and 2 PCs sharing a 2 meg internet connection from an Ovistel modem/router.

Usually I can surf the internet no problems but then I will get 'page not found' errors while trying to browse the web. This happens about 50% of the time whe I use the net. Sometimes I can still use MSN and POP3 mail even though I can't find web pages, though usually my internet conneciton fails altogether even though it is still showing as connected.

When I play online games I usually have a ping of about 30-40ms but it can suddenly rocket up to 500 or 600ms and then drop again or sometimes the connection will just disappear even though the network is still saying it is connected.

The solution usually is to just reboot the wireless modem and hope that it works but most of the time it doesn't and I just have to wait until it works again which is very frustrating as you can imagine.

I'm completely out of ideas as to how to fix it. Can anyone help me at all?

I've tried repairing the wireless connection and this works occasionally but sometimes it says 'cannot renew IP address' - not sure what to do about this.

I'm really at my wits' end, can anyone help?

 

I may be way of base here but, what about other wireless things are around that may be inferering ?

I just got home from visiting my Son and he told me that he also had problems at times.

Through carefull watching of what other things that were being run/used at the same time in the home he found that a couple of times a Wireless Phone may have messed him up.

He is thinking of going back to wired.

BillyBob

 

We have two cordless phones. Someone suggested before that they might interfere so I disabled them to see if there was any difference but the same internet problem occured

 

I don't think this is all that unusual...

...with wireless connections based on cable modems, in my experience.

Just from anecdotal experience with my system, problems seem to occur at certain times when either other cable users, beyond the LAN but on the same cable segment, are really banging on the network and using lots of bandwidth, or (this is speculative on my part), the cable system operator makes some sort of adjustment in the relative power available to various cable segments, as it fine-tunes its system, that is deleterious to your network. A cable modem is sensitive to the number and intensity of connections, operating in a serial fashion -- if you are at the end of a run, you are at the mercy of all those in front of you.

My wife's computer is connected via wired Ethernet to a router and basically has no problems, but my home office computer with a USB wireless adapter is at the opposite end of the house from the same router and has a much more variable signal strength and quality. She never has droppped connections, except in the very rare instances when our Roadrunner system actually goes off line. But I'm on the same router and regularly experience dropped connections -- although it does seem to be rather episodic, with long periods of connection stability and then other periods where the connections are frequently dropped. I can't move my computer closer to the router to see if that helps, but I am considering installing a supplemental repeating router. A more directional antenna on the router might also help.

Another thing you should check out, besides interference by cordless phones operating in/near the same GHz band and home microwaves between your router and wireless adapter, is that your neighbors may have installed a wireless network that creates interference. Your wireless utility should tell you what wireless networks are being received. Operating on a specified, different channel might help in that instance.

Be sure you have the latest firmware upgrade installed on your router. They fix known weaknesses with respect to interference.

Finally, fluctuations in power supply to the router and/or the computer with the wireless adapter, even if unnoticeable generally, could be accompanied by wireless signal instability, especially if you are at the fringes of a good signal range. Perhaps having a battery-powered Uninterruptible Power Supply might help -- again, anecdotally, I haven't had nearly the problem I once had after installing UPSs on the cable modem, router, and my computer with the wireless adapter.

Good luck!

 

I have a simple network with Linksys router,extender and one adapter. Often, I cannot get email because of the "no wireless connection ". I run Firefox, be sure I can switch URLs and then try the Thunderbird. Works every time