help determing the problem to my network please

[lockmac]

Hi guys. for literally years, we have struggled to get our internet at home working reliably. we have gone through about 5 routers, dont even know if that is the problem yet, but when we get a new one, it seems to work for a little bit and then the net stops working..

basically, we have two problems-

1. the internet is unreliable and the router will drop its connection quite often which often a reset of the router fixes this, or just time. we are going to a new ISP soon so dunno if that will help.

2. the wireless is temporamental as all hell! dunno if its the wireless cards in the laptops- we have a sony and a asus and the asus works on the wireless much better than the sony. i even bought another wifi ap but even then the wireless drops out and stuff, and often on the asus, just turning the on/off switch of the wireless can fix this.

anyways.. just bought a new linksys wireless router with a built in modem (as i thought the modem could be dodgy and making the internet flaky).

Now im sitting right next to the router and the laptop is scrolling between "authentication process to network has been started". "then it will go "out of network range" and then "searching for nearby, "wireless networks found", "you are now connected".

I just thought that our old routers wireless antenna was dodgy which is why we bought a new one as beeing only a couple of feet away would have poor reception.

computers that are hard wired to the network are fine- they work even if the wireless doesnt but when the internet drops, they dont work (in the router status, it says that it is NOT CONNECTED).

can someone please offer some solutions!

please tell me if any of these situations are possible and making the network are bit dodgy-

1. apparently we are the last house that can get broadband as we are just over 5km from the exchange. any truth to this?
2. would having the router on top of a computer make the wireless stuff up? its only been their a few weeks, but the wireless was pretty dodgy before this.

any help would be great.

 

[Wardawg1001]

Sounds like you have multiple problems going on. Wireless home networking is always tricky, there are literally dozens of factors that can lead to the problems you are describing (and some of them simply arent fixable or are difficult to determine). Lets look at a couple key things though to determine where the problem may lie.

1. Your wired computers lose their connection sometimes but not other times. This is important because it means you are clearly dealing with multiple issues. You have some kind of line issue between your modem and the terminal down the street where your signal is coming from, and you also have some kind of wireless interference issue inside the house. If this issue happened with both the modem + router and the modem/router combo then you are likely looking at internal wiring issues in the home, or possibly issues on the ISP's end. If this continues to happen with your new ISP you probably have issues with either the jack you plug your modem into or the actual wiring in walls. Try moving the modem to a new phone/coax jack (depending on your service type) and see if wired connections have the same problem to rule out issues related to that specific jack.

2. Part of your wireless issues are certainly related to your wired connections failing, but you say that the wireless drops sometimes while the wired connections dont. This can be cause by any number of things. Wireless interference can be caused by dozens of household items, most commonly cordless phones. Different broadcast types (a/b/g/n) will use different frequency ranges, so my advice is to just unplug all your cordless phones for a while and see if you stop losing your wireless when your wired connections dont go down. If you get better stability then you can be relatively sure at least that the cordless phones are causing a problem. If you have other wireless devices try powering them off as well.

3. You mentioned that you have the modem/router on top of the computer - yes this can cause a problem with wireless. Basically its emitting electrical interference that can degrade or completely scramble the wireless signal. Some routers are more affected by it than others, but almost all routers will experience it to a certain degree. If possible get the router at least 3 feet away from anything large and electrical (tower, monitor, speakers, tv's, etc), if thats not possible just get it as far away as you can.

4. Don't get too close to the router with your wirelessly connected devices. Some routers emit very strong signals that can cause sort of a minimum range for getting a wireless signal. If you are too close you may not get a good signal or any signal at all. If you find that you HAVE to be within 10 feet of the router to get a wireless signal, something is degrading the signal strength a significant amount. Electrical interference and cordless phones (and other wireless devices) are the most common culprits here. Rarely this can be caused by a bad router as well but its not likely, and especially unlikely when it happens with multiple routers.

5. The fact that one of your wireless computer works better than the other can be caused by multiple things. Better wireless adapter in the computer that works better is most likely, but if you may want to examine the area around the computer that doesnt work as well for sources of wireless interference (cordless phones, other wireless devices besides the router). If the ASUS works better regardless of location then it probably just has a better wireless adapter, or the one in your other laptop is faulty.

6. If you have DSL then distance from the nearest terminal can be a major problem. The further you are the slower your maximum speeds will be, and people at the far end of the line generally experience some pretty serious line issues which commonly cause intermittent loss of signal. I don't know about Cable service but I assume it has some distance issues as well, though not as serious as with DSL. Usually they cant do anything to make the connection better but if you complain enough I'm sure they will at least send someone to check it out.




These are the major problems I can see, I realize that wasn't very organized and kind of lengthy, so here is a short version of my suggestions without explanation.

1. Call your ISP, determine if there are any line issues causing you to lose service intermittently (this will cause wired and wireless connection drops at the same time).

2. Try moving the modem/router to a new jack and see if this stops the wired connections from dropping.

3. Try moving the modem/router away from large, electrical devices and see if this stops or lessens the amount of wireless connection drops or allows you to move further away from the modem/router while maintaining a connection.

4. Unplug (the power) cordless phones and other cordless devices and see if this stops or lessens the amount of wireless connection drops or allows you to move further away from the modem/router while maintaining a connection.

5. Stay at least 5 feet from the modem/router with all wireless connections (if you have to be closer than that then you have some serious environmental interference problems).

Try these steps one at a time to determine what helps and what doesn't so you can figure out exactly what is causing the problem and what isn't. Post your results and we can go from there.