Internet connectivity dropping out.....

RuSsMaN

Sony Vaio on XP Home, wireless to Linksys router. AVG Free, Windows Firewall, IE7. Gig of Ram, plenty of HD space. Outlook and AIM are open the majority of the time.

Good signal strength and connectivity, but every now and then pages hang, waiting to refresh or load - and then finally time out. A quick F5 usually loads them right back up - but not until they actually time out and I get the proverbial 'page cannot be displayed'. It happens once or twice an hour, and doesn't seem to matter where or what I'm doing on the web.

Thoughts?

Bill Ayotte

I have the same problem man, I have no idea why....I use Firefox, have 2GB of ram, and 75% free space on my HD....I also clear my temp files regularly....XP home as well....

RuSsMaN

Yeah, I've done the usual, reset the cable modem, reset the router, dump the cache.....nothing seems to make a difference.

Bill Ayotte

Hey Russ, are you on DSL or Cable? I am on DSL...

RuSsMaN

Cable, Time Warner - formally Comcast.

ben62670

Hey Russ. Ever since Crisco bought out linksys their routers have had problems. The nat chip gets hot, and you will have all the right numbers on your PC, but will loose pages, and eventually just die completely. When customers call describing what you are describing I first ask what kind of router are you using, and the answer almost always is...
Try bypassing the router, and hooking up to the DSL/Cable modem directly. This is what I do for a living.

I said Crisco:D

Good luck
Cheers

dorokusai

The root cause: ****. You make me sick.

PS: Send me those links.

RuSsMaN

Yeah, works fine direct - but if I wanted direct, I wouldn't have bought a laptop and got the whole wireless thing started.

So you think it's the Linksys more than likely? Any recommendations on another Wireless-G?

Cheers,
Russ

ben62670

RuSsMaN wrote: »

Yeah, works fine direct - but if I wanted direct, I wouldn't have bought a laptop and got the whole wireless thing started.

So you think it's the Linksys more than likely? Any recommendations on another Wireless-G?

Cheers,
Russ

Almost definitely the router(I never say 100% when it come to computers). Does this happen throughout the house? Mirrors, and glass can interrupt a signal too. I really like Netgear, and speed stream. Dlink doesn't seem to perform as well. I have not had a netgear fail yet, and yes I do realize that Linksys has sold more than 10 times the amount Netgear has. I also realize that Cisco is one of the higher end commercial routers. They just suck with their home routers.

RuSsMaN

Trying a firmware update now, we'll see what happens.

ben62670

I hope it works for ya. The chip gets real hot in those suckers!

Dennis Gardner

Sounds like you need some tubes in that thing to smooth things out......isn't that the end-all answer hear on CP?

RuSsMaN

Firmware updated, doing the same damn thing. I guess I'm router shopping.

Nah, I can't do tubes in the router - then I'll have to participate in all the 'rolling' threads - when will it end?

ben62670

anonymouse wrote: »

Most likely there is some device in your area causing a channel conflict. This may be a neighbors router or any device emitting EMI on the same frequency. I had a problem with my microwave causing timeouts when it was on. I suggest you try changing the transmit channel. You can do this in your router settings. The computer should automatically figure out the new channel on the next reboot or network restart. Try it. These problems are just a matter of tweaking till you get em right.

Before doing this print a sign that reads "Bang Head Here", and hang it on a hard wall:p

Are you getting a good signal?

RuSsMaN

I'm cycling through the channels, seeing if that makes a difference. I was on 6, I'm up to 9 right now and keep going and start from 1.

Yeah Ben, signal is fine 4 to 5 bars.

ben62670

Its bad
The thing that sucks about those is if you do an ipconfig /release then an ipconfig /renew from the command prompt you get all the right numbers. When Cisco first bought them out I was pulling the hair out of my head with those things! Then I found out that the chips over heat and die.

jmwest1970

What type of encryption are you running? I had exactly the same problem while running WPA and WPA2. I finally backed down to WEP and MAC filtering to prevent rogue clients. Yes, I know WEP is extremely broken, but I live on an extremely busy street so I don't worry about War Driving. I've also turned the radio down to a level where it barely reaches outside the house.

Anyway, check that Russ and see if it helps.

disneyjoe7

Funny I had the same problem yesterday, found it to be my wireless / wired hub it was dieing. It's not a Linksys but a Airlink 101 (had issues with Linksys), I'm opening her up to see what chips are in this thing.

disneyjoe7

ben62670 wrote: »

I also realize that Cisco is one of the higher end commercial routers. They just suck with their home routers.

Have you ever seen one of those Commercial routers? They have some serious fans cooler them off, I got one at work I tell you that it's like a Hair Dryer if you got 6 or 8 of them working at the same time.

RuSsMaN

WEP 128 bit, simple, easy.

fatchowmein

I absolutely agree with Ben. Whenever I see a router start to timeout for no apparant reason, time to replace it. I've seen this problem with Linksys, Belkin, and Netgear and my guess is heat related. Regardless, swap it with another and see if the problem continues. Keep the receipt in case it is something else so you can return it and come back to the forum and make fun of me and Ben.

Good luck

mhardy6647

The only problems at our house are caused by 2 GHz cordless phones. Even the wired network hiccups sometimes when I answer the phone in question (which is surreal).

phuz

Edit: Just saw that it works fine when wired.

Update wireless card drivers and firmware.

Try downloading a free wireless survey tool like netstumbler and see what other wireless signals you are competing with. Pick a channel that nobody else is using.

Check the support pages for your router. Some wireless routers are known to drop and renew IP addresses regularly causing an issue like this. There may be a fix for it out there somewhere.

jmwest1970

RuSsMaN wrote: »

WEP 128 bit, simple, easy.

I'll have to agree with the majority of the others to replace it. The things are cheap enough now days that they're disposable.

disneyjoe7

Well mine lived for 2 years 24/7/365, would like to get more out of it for $80 bucks but...

dylan

Unless I missed it, I don't see what wireless client you're using (Windows? Linksys client?). It would be good to narrow down if the problem is cross-client, then that will point to your router.

disneyjoe7

Since I took mine apart and checked the circuit out too see what heats up... I found the Transmitter / Receiver section to run very hot in fact I sure thats what dies since I also had an issue.

So in short any software troubleshooting is a waste of time, this is a hardware problem.

ben62670

I have a linksys. I am saving it for the next time I go skeet shooting:)

Updating the drivers doesn't work. Bad drivers means no worky, or some things don't work, he can keep the signal not the connection.

Network Address Translation chip is flakey;)

Systems

I've always had problems with my Linksys routers. Every so often you need to wipe it back to factory spec and set it back up. Works most the time. Usually the "backup" and "restore" settings don’t work at all.

Never set your AP's to WEP.... Always use WPA. Any script kiddy on the internet can break your Wep with a downloaded script and a tennis ball tube.

We took the stance long ago at my company that we do not support wireless in any way except to connect to our business AP’s (Cisco).

People just don’t know the technology. Its billed as an easy technology but it isn’t.

I had a user tell us to setup her laptop to “wireless” so she could use it driving down I5.

Jockos

I've had a microsoft router for 4years and not a hiccup. I've always looked at those newer routers with 2 antennas(looks cool) but decided if it ain't broke; don't fix it. microsoft doesn't make wireless gear anymore. The only downside is that the router doesn't support WPA only WEP.

Jockos

RuSsMaN

Living life dangerously for a few.....

So far, no problems with AVG Free AntiVirus disabled. Suggestions on NEW Virus protection?