HP: random losses of Internet to Linksys

This problem may seem a bit strange, and currently i am completely lost at what to do.

My issue is that my laptop will randomly loss it's internet connection with the router. Although this is not a complete loss of internet. If I'm playing a computer game such as WoW or Wc3, it will allow me to keep playing and interact with the other users. Ventrillo (a voice communication program) will stop allowing me to chat with other players, although I can still hear them. My internet browser pages will continue to run, although i cannot open another internet page or it will time out. I keep some of my internet i suppose but i cannot open new internet pages or send audio through ventrillo, i may only recieve audio from other players. Internet games work perfectly throughout all of this.

This will happen once a day, once an hour, or 5 times in one hour and completely lock me down from using the internet. If i restart my internet it will fix it, although it more than often returns in about 2mins or so. Sometimes it never happens in a day or sometimes it happens 10-20 times a day making things very frustrating. At night (for w/e reason) it seems to happen the most, why? i have no clue.

My brother owns a computer that he plugs directly into the router. He experiences absolutely no problems with internet at all. Our set up hasnt changed in 2 years.

Ive had the same laptop and router for 2 years and i have had NO PROBLEM, but the past 3 months this problem has been occurring. Proximity to router seems to have no change, i can move far or close, it doesn't matter. I CANNOT plug my computer into the router because of living issues (>.>).

I have absolutely no clue what to do, unless i want to buy a new router or computer.

Any help is appreciated!

 

Does your laptop have any of these problems (or similar problems) when it connects to any other wireless router?

 

Nope, i go to a shore house with a wireless router and it works fine.

BUT my brother recently changed the channel that our linksys was broadcasting on and it hasn't acted up since he did. Maybe its luck or maybe its fixed, were not sure.

 

If changing the channel improved things, it could be that there was too much interference on the old channel - the wifi protocols are designed to be collision-avoidant, which means that a broadcaster (e.g., your wireless card) has to stop broadcasting if it detects a competing signal (the other broadcaster is supposed to do the same, too); if there were a number of other networks all operating on the same channel (or one network on the channel but with a lot of clients attached to it), then that might have caused your wireless card (or the router itself) to stop broadcasting to the point where it "concluded" that no network was really available.

The other two alternatives are (1) the router is getting weak, which is a definite possibility, as those things don't last forever, or (2) there's a problem with your wireless card, which opens up a whole 'nother can of worms that we oughtn't to visit unless it's the only alternative left.