WiFi and Ethernet Woes

Lately I've been suffering from drop-outs on my WiFi/Ethernet connection. On my WiFi connection (We have a Linksys router - pretty old and slow though - Wireless B: 11 Mpbs) I've seen frequent drop-outs which occur every 1-5 minutes depending upon how heavily I'm using the web. At first I just thought this problem was due to my old external WiFi card from 2001, but my dad's Qosmio and our iMac seemed to be experiencing the same thing. After I concluded this, I thought it must be the Wireless Router, however, when we bought a new router and tested it, the same thing happened all over again. Then I tested out our Ethernet connection and found this to be a problem - the connection would periodically drop-out and sometimes stay dropped-out for hours at a time. I eventually found that resetting our ethernet routers fixed the connection temporarilly, but would return in a matter of minutes. I am therefore consulting the fourm to see if anyone has experienced the samething or has found a solution to it. My current internet connection is through cable and our local cable company (100 Mbps wired). I have scanned throughly for spyware/viruses on all our Windows PCs, so I know it's not that (I have 6 anti-spyware programs and have run mulitple scans with Norton). I not good in the WiFi/Internet conncetion department, so any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I can tell you that I drop out every Monday night at around 9. Sometimes for a few minutes,sometimes up to an hour. This has been the case with 2 routers, 2-3 wireless cards, and 3 different laptops. The ISP connection is fine, since I can get on via a wired PC during these outages.

I've given up trying to figure out what the problem is...

 

When you go wired is it through the router ? If so try going direct to the Cable Modem ==> Computer and see if the drop outs continue. If they do then the problem is you ISP and you will have to deal with them.

If the connection is solid you can concertrate you efforts back to the router. More information such as Linksys Model and Firmware version would be helpfull as well.

Good Luck

 

if you've isolated the fault to be with the cable company, it sounds like you should contact them.

 

Ok, its not a problem with your computers and router so we can cross that off the list. it has to be your ISP or the Modem.

Are you sure its 100Mbps wired? It might say that in the wireless connection properties under local area connection, but it should be anywhere from 4Mbps - 8Mbps. (I think in the past i remember you said 4mbps, but there are so many people it might be another person.)

I had these cable woes:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=29095
And then it got fixed:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=29787

Its a slightly different situation though. Cable CAN (Rarely) have slow speeds and cut outs. Which if your internet is slow too, its more than likely your Internet. I would contact your ISP and see what they say.
Do you own your modem? If not, i would really consider owning your own also.

 

Well, I reading out 100 Mbps on all my wired connections and we've replaced our modem and routers in the last 2 months, so I don't think it's them. I believe it's the cable company and my dad's already talked to them several times, but claim it's not them. I pretty sure it's the cable company, but I don't know how to pin it on them.

 

Have them come to your house, they will check the lines and the speeds. It will more than likely be free but i can't garuntee it.

 

O.K. thanks for all the help everyone! I think that we'll have the cable guys come out this weekend to check everything out.