Problem with intermittent wi-fi connection

Downstains I have a desktop computer, a DSL modem and a Linksys 802.11g router, all connected by cables and have no probems with Internet connectivity. Upstairs in the kitchen is my wife's laptop, and that's where the problem appears. Sometimes the Internet connection is "Very Good," other times there isn't one. That's what confuses me, the connectivity is intermittent. When the laptop won't connect, I can move it into our bedroom, which is directly above my downstairs setup, and the laptop will then connect as "Excellent." When I move it back to the kitchen, sometimes the connection will stick but at other times it will die. Supposedly the hardware is all OK or the laptop would never connect, right?

Two days ago I thought maybe the arrangement of components on my desk downstairs was the problem. The router was on the far side so that my computer and monitor were between it and the upstairs laptop. That evening I moved the router to the other side. Yesterday morning my wife was delighted with my genius. Her laptop got on-line quickly and stayed on. This morning, though, for 3 hours she couldn't get on-line. I moved the laptop into our bedroom and got on-line immediately. Back in the kitchen, still on-line. So what's with this intermittent business? And it's gotten noticably worse within the past couple weeks. So has my reputation around here.

There is a microwave in the kitchen, but it hasn't been on during any of the problem times. We have 2 portable phones upstairs, but neither is the 2.4 type and neither was being used while the laptop was having connection trouble. There may be other people in the neighborhood whose systems could be causing some interference, but the laptop doesn't alert us to any such difficulty. I saw another post that mentioned changing channels. Is that something I should look into? Any ideas for a solution so my wife will have one less reason to question my intelligence?

 

TonyT: Thanks for replying.

I probably could have better described my Linksys model as the WRT54GS, if that helps. I checked the Linksys users panel and saw several people having fairly similar problems. They were using the WRT54G model, though, not the model like mine with SpeedBooster, if that makes any difference. And they were having intermittent trouble with both their wired and wi-fi connectivity. Here it's just the laptop and wi-fi. There were also some recommendations about changing the MTU setting (I think downwards). According to a SiSoft Sandra scan, my Packet MTU is 1.5kB. Significant?

OK, as to your ideas. Your #1, about changing the WLAN ID, I'm pretty sure I did that when I first set up the router, although not positive. Need to check, but how? Your #2, about changing channels. I've thought of doing that but have no idea how. Instructions? As for #3, I didn't get a 3d-party card, am using the card built into her Dell Inspiron. I'll wait until I've tried those ideas before I do #4 and #5. I've also considered doing a variation of #6. But instead of running a 100' length of CAT5 upstairs, I might get a shorter length, maybe 25', and just move the router farther away from my desk and closer to directly under her laptop. She'd be more impressed with the improvement in connectivity than she would be with the color of the cable, anyway.

So how do I change channels? And how do I check my LAN ID? And is my Linksys router model vulnerable to the same problems those other people were having, or were their problems different enough that our situation shouldn't be compared to theirs?

 

Selecting the wireless channel is given on page 22 of the WRT54GS manual.

There are a lot of things that can attenuate a wireless signal. Plants can do a pretty good job of blocking wireless. Wood is reasonably transparent (so wireless to a room above the access point is almost always good), brick is harder, stone can be harder still, and reinforced concrete can block it dead (the grid of steel that reinforces the concrete can act as a fairly effective shield to the wireless signal). It also doesn't go through people too well. It can be fun watching the signal drop in a class room as the kids come in and fill the room. So if you move the router, try to minimise the thickness of wall that the signal has to travel through.

In your position, in addition to the excellent points Tony raised, I'd also look for electrical items giving out a lot of RF noise. You mention your microwave and phones. Fluorescent strip lights can give off a lot of RF noise - especially if the tube or starter are playing up.

 

Wi Fi Networking Blues

1) Change the channel of the router from 6 ( default channel setting) to another channel - first choices are 1 or 11
2) Make the router is in a high open spot not cluttered with objects around it.
Not on the floor or under a metal desk.
3) It could be the wireless drivers but not likely as a first step

Later on you can try to find stray signals with a more sensitive scanning program called netstumbler

http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/

often though you do not see the culprit signal but it makes the computer networking bounce between the ips from the two ( or more routers) so you have a signal but no consistent internet connection
remember that many of the newest routers have the beacon setting turned off as a security measure in their default setting so you may not catch neighbour's wireless routers signals . These signals as well may be sporadic as if the isp is dsl it is set on default to " connect on demand "
The biggest problem by far is neighbouring routers.
It is amazing how far the signals can waft in out of nowhere.
The record for wi fi ( with large c band antennas for reception) is 125 miles.
This is an artificial controlled situation in the desert. No other signals in the 12 channels. Still they had to prove internet reception by message info and break wep codes .

http://www.engadget.com/2005/07/31/unamplified-wifi-distance-record-set-at-125-miles/

you might also want to try a network setup maintenance program called network magic

http://www.networkmagic.com/nmlp/home-networking.php?src=google&kw=network magic


The first step which cures most wi fi problems is to change the channel of the router.

 

example of a wi fi idiot

Don't know if I shared this story before.
I had the misfortune of helping out a best friend of a relative of mine.
I got him a laptop .
Told me he had a new dlink router.
Kept badgering me that the laptop worked fine in the basement and the second floor but not in the kitchen.
A person I later found out that came from an entirely diffirent culture.
Former biker of low standing and repute.
First rule is never to ever admit you are wrong as then you lose face and the others can knock you out.
No matter how I tried to diagnose and say it a strange situation of diagnosis he would insist "No. No. It works in the basement . My wife can get messenger well in the bedroom on the second floor. It does not work in the kitchen ( on main floor). "
It turned out that there were several setup issues:

1) The D-link wireless router was located on the floor under a metal desk in a furnace room with full metal file cabinet, a heavy metal furnace and metal ventilation ducts further in the way
2) D-Link router was set to channel 6 ( default setting)
3) The signal he was receiving on the main floor was a neighbour's Linksys router also on channel 6 . It seems to me that this router was set to connect on demand to a dsl connection
4) The bedroom upstairs was on the far side of the house and it would connect to another entirely seperate Linksys router ( also on default settings and channel 6)

Luckily I am rid of this fellow. However he may be the smarter one as he was unpaid. I have been left out in the cold by my "successfull " relative.
However it is amazing how fast he mangages to find my number and call me
when it is in his self interest .

As I said an entirely diffirent culture based on two beliefs

1) theft is a way of life
2) You can never admit you are wrong in any manner

as they say: let this be a lesson to you

 

Good to see so many people joining in and offering helpful advice.

Perversely, my wife's laptop got on-line yesterday afternoon and stayed connected all day and evening. And it's connected so far today. Why it worked Friday but not yesterday morning and then it's behaved itself so far since then, I have no idea. Right now she's working on some e-mails, so I don't want to change any settings that would disconnect her.

Some information about this house, since some of your ideas dealt with that. It's 75 years old, of wood frame construction, with lath and plaster interior walls. No metal appliances are in the path between the router and the laptop. My desk is made of wood, and so is the table the laptop is on.

We sometimes take the laptop with us when we go to our vacation home (in a condominium complex) near Lake Tahoe. When we bootup there, we often see a notice about signals coming from 3 or 4 other sources, so the laptop is configured to sense that. And it doesn't notify us of anything here at home. Same ISP both places, with DSL at both places, too.

I don't seem to have a copy of the Linksys manual, just a setup leaflet. I did check your link to the on-line manual. Haven't yet made any adjustments. Yesterday I ran a speed test of my DSL service here, mostly to see if the results showed a recent deterioration in signal that might explain the laptop's disconnects. The download and upload speeds were 5122/648 Kbps, much like tests in the past.

When I go about changing the router's channel, is that a "hot" change, while on-line, or will I have to get off-line and do one or more restarts?

 

Will this kind of hardware help me extend the range of my netgear rangemax MIMO wireless router? I have a sprawled out single level home and router is in one end of the house and my wife's daycare is in the OTHER end of the house. She wants to print wirelessly from our Desktop Dell to our new Dell wireless network printer in the daycare or even from her new Dell inspiron notebook. Wireless network in Daycare is named "linksys" our home network is named "NETGEAR "
yes it is in ALL CAPS so I could recognise it on her new laptop.

 

Range Expander /Extender

The results from range expander/extenders are often not too good.
The devices have to be matched to the router ( same manufacturer it is not a generic choice).
An idea is to build a simple focusing antenna behind the router.

 

Thanks Tony,
So, in my case hard wiring a Cat5 cable to the other end of the house and plugging in another Wireless router would work.
I had a Netgear wireless G router and when my wife decided she wanted to use a laptop in the daycare but since our network does not extend out there I purchased a netgear Rangemax wireless G router and it did not help. Can I use my old Netgear plugged into the far end of a cat5 cable originating at the Netgear rangemax that I just installed?

 

Thanks Tony!!
I just ordered a Netgear range extender. I will try to return the Rangemax that I just bought.

Sorry for the Hijacked thread Bobbo.

 

I've been out of the house much of the last 2 days and haven't done much about the connectivity problem. My wife says her laptop was on-line all afternoon and evening yesterday, and it's worked OK again today, although it took about 20 minutes to make the connection this morning.

A few minutes ago I tried the 192.168.1.1 Linksys connection but apparently they didn't keep my registration file when I first set up the router, so I re-registered. They still don't recognize me, so maybe after an hour or so the registration dept. will get through to the support dept. and I can proceed. I'd like to check what channel this router is set on now, and maybe check the MTU setting, too. Is 1.5kB just a rounding off of the recommended 1492?

I'm curious about the basics behind our problem here. I gather that the signal strength my wife's laptop receives is determined by the laptop itself and its peripherals, by obstructions between the laptop and the router, by the settings in the router, and by the DSL signal arriving over our phone line. Since most of those are unchanging, is the only variable the ISP's DSL signal? If I don't move any of the components here, and we don't use the microwave oven or any portable phones, what's changing so that the wi-fi connection is sometimes strong enough and other times it isn't? Remember that my desktop computer's wired connection is almost always OK and that moving my wife's laptop from the kitchen to our bedroom will almost always result in a good connection. So why is the laptop's connection in the kitchen sometimes OK but at other times not? That would seem to be the key.

geta2j: No problem.

 

It's been an interesting evening. That registration business didn't seem right to me, so I went through several steps at the Linksys Web site, none of which seemed to open the door to my router settings. Eventually I got the impression that I needed to clear up that problem by pressing the Reset button on the router for 30 seconds. That erases all the settings in the router and resets them to the defaults. It did that, alright. It also killed my Internet connection. My ISP tech support said I needed to have Linksys walk me through a new setup. Linksys had me on hold for 30 minutes, then a chap went through a huge long operation with me that got me back on-line, got my password changed, got me switched to channel 11, got my MTU changed to 1492 and got me an even newer firmware upgrade than the one I'd downloaded earlier today. He thought all that should make a definite difference. Now we wait to see how well the laptop connects tomorrow and how well the connection holds. I'll get back to report the results so everyone can learn from this.

Thanks for all the help and information and for your patience as well.

 

TonyT: Your tips are excellent advice. So excellent, in fact, that I already did them the evening before you posted them.

Follow-up report: It's been 2 days now and all has gone well. My wife's laptop connects within seconds of booting up. The connection is always "Excellent" now rather than the former "Very Good." And no more disconnects.

Thanks to some top-notch assistance, the connectivity problem seems to have gotten fixed and the whole laptop situation is noticably better now than it had ever been before. Even my wife is pleased.