Wireless connection constantly drops, any help appreciated!

Hey guys, i've had an ongoing problem with my wireless internet. I'm sure you have seen me post here before a while back. here's the back story:

I used to have a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router. We have about three laptops connected through wireless and a desktop connected via ethernet cable. Ever so often, all of our laptops will lose our internet connection. Typically, our internet and sharing center icon on the bottom right will have a yellow exclamation point and say "limited connectivity" or it'll just disconnect alltogether. Our SSID is still being broadcasted and when we try to reconnect, it does not work. The desktop, connected via ethernet through the wireless router, will still have an internet connection so we concluded it is a wireless problem. In order to fix the problem, i have to constantly unplug the power to the Linksys router and replug it.

A few days ago, I got fed up having to do this for many months and replaced all of my equipment. I purchased a new Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 and went to Time Warner Cable to replace my cable modem with a new one. Unfortunately, I still have this issue.

My last guess is that it is a wireless interference issue (because I have played with every possible setting in my wireless router, unless you all have suggestions). Although my wireless router uses the 2.4GHz frequency, my home phones use 900Mhz and 5.8Ghz. What gives? Also, no one in the household uses bluetooth and the microwave is pretty far away from the wireless router. I will be replacing our home phones with a 1.9Ghz set of phones to fix this problem. If it doesn't i'm going to cry because I don't know what is causing the problem.

Any suggestions is greatly appreciated and will be tried. If you need any more details, i will provide them. Thanks.

 

There're always neighboors...

Right now from my desk, my laptop could pick 19 SSIDs, only two are at 5GHz band (one is mine), so there'are no free channels at the 2.4GHz band. That's why I opted to use dual band wireless router and move all the laptops connection to the 5GHz band.

Try using program such as InSSIDer to check free channels at yours.

 

I understand that, i have already used inssider before to scan all other access points. My router is flashed with Tomato firmware and i scanned the channels to see which ones are not in use. I'm the only router that's not using a channel in 1,6 or 11. I've also increased the transmit power to 70mW.

 

With channels in between the 1/6/11 you will have more overlap with the frequencies band.

What OS's and wireless security are you using WPA(2)?
Is SSID broadcasted in the clear? This needs to be in the clear for the connection to stay connected.

What have you have your lease times set at? increase to 12 hr+.

I have the same buffalo router with dd-wrt loaded. It has been stable as a rock.

You indicted that all connections drop which indicates a lease time expiring or hardware failure.

Limited connectivity normally means you have lost outside internet access or have reverted to a def IP assign by windows.

When this happens see what "ipconfig" tells you. Make a note of your DNS servers and gateway. See if you can connect to the routers admin page.

see if you can:
ping your router, will confirm connection to the router if not its a AP problem
if ok
then ping 209.191.93.53, this will confirm gateway.
ping yahoo.com , if not dns servers lost

 

It is unlikely all their leases drop at once. DHCP by default requests a re-leasing of the IP address when there is 25% time left anyways.

This is a tough one to diagnose. It is also possible, but unlikely that one of your own laptops is interfering.

 

.................

 

anyone else? still getting this problem. i'm about to go crazy

 

Yes for ipconfig. type-o on my part.

You may have a neighbor that is using channel bonding and interfering with your network. Scanning for networks and channels being used may reveal this.

I assume you are not running mixed mode 11g/b. Some routers have a problem with that.

 

nope, running it on G only. i've had it on B/G or G only before and it's the same result. the good thing is, my connection has been fine for two days now. the bad thing is, i know it will eventually disconnect again.

 

Has there been a resolution to this issue? I'm experiencing the exact same thing -- Time Warner cable in NYC. Wired computer stays connected, wireless computers drop. Sometimes I get limited or no connectivity. I'm using a Linksys WRT54GS router with DD-WRT firmware. Default firmware made no difference. Could it be something with Time Warner Cable? Any help is greatly appreciated...

 

If it is just the wireless, it's either a problem with the computer, a power issue or interference issue most likely.

Try a different wall outlet. Power fluctuations will cause the wireless to be the first thing to drop out. If it's an older router, bad or worn power packs can also cause it.

Also see if you have logging enabled.
Many routers do this and when the log gets full, which can happen especially fast with torrents, it can crash the router.

 

Anoyther avenue of discovery would be to run Microsoft's Network Monitor on one of the wireless laptops and watch for the wireless connection-specific packets being sent back and forth between the router and the notebook (you may, or may not, pick up packets being sent to the other systems if they're being broadcast or multicast). With the constant dropping and attempting to reconnect, you should get a sense of what's happening to cause the disconnect.