Wireless disconnects every few hours

Hi there,

I bought a Dell inspiron N5110 laptop with windows 7 ultimate 64 bit 2 months ago, and since i got it ive been having a problem with my wireless connection...

This happens randomly..sometimes after i open the laptop by 30 mins and sometimes after 4-5 hrs ...suddenly the network im using disconnects and as i open the network tab to chose my network again i cant find it...i find many others but not mine, and i have to wait a minute or two before it appears again and it connects for a couple of mins then disconnects again and it keeps on disconnecting like that...i have to restart my laptop for it to be stable again for a few hours

i googled the problem a bit and i found some people saying that they have the same problem with windows 7 ultimate..but i cudnt find the solution for it yet

i changed the router and still had the same problem so the problem isnt with the router.

Any help would be great cause the problem is quite annoying!

 

You checked the power settings (under Device Manager) on the laptop's network card to make sure it is not set to turn it off to save power? Make sure the check is out.

(screen shot attached)

If that's not it maybe it's the wireless encryption type your using that is causing the issues. And/or wireless type. ie; wireless N, G, B etc. Maybe it's not compatible with the said Router(s). Try different settings; try removing the pass code encryption all together to test.

 

i unchecked the "Turn off wireless network to save power" option ,will see if that works and let u know

thanks for ur response

 

ok, tried that and it still disconnects!

 

Make sure your wireless drivers are up to date and that the firmware on you rooter is current as well.
Download inSSIDer (free) and run it. If you're using a channel that is overcrowded and/or overlapping try changing the channel to a free one (or relatively free- as in fewer networks or networks with low signal strength)

 

i'm not sure what you're suggesting downloads... so i ran inSSIDer and this is what i got (my connection is "Simply")

Hope you can explain what im supposed to do if there's a problem with the data shown thru the program!

Thanks

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/193/inssider.png/

 

It looks pretty good but you can check what happens if you choose 20MHz channel width as opposed to 40MHz one (the setting is on the router).
According to inSSIDer you're connected at 150mbps anyway so you won't lose a thing.

Also change IP lease time on the router to some ridiculously high value (several days)

 

I had same problem. What I did was I changed my WiFi encryption protocol. It works well now.

 

How long have you used your modem / router. If you use it for a long time it’s better to replace with the new one. Sometimes older routers make these problems.

 

Downloads i tried your recommendation 20Mhz channel width instead of 40 and im not sure if its a coinciedence or not but the connection worked well for a day,then it started acting up again...but it disconnects at a lower rate now, maybe once or twice a day

KillKenny i used a router with WEP encryption and then another with WPA encryption and they both had the same problem

JennaBlum, i already bought a new router a month ago thinking that the problem was cause my router was old! Now im stuck with a new router and the same problem occurs

I think the problem might be with Windows 7 ultimate or a hardware problem in my laptop because i tried another laptop with windows vista and i didnt have that problem

 

Are your drivers up to date?
What Wi-Fi card is it?

 

I think that they are, but if you have some program or website where i can check if the drivers are up to date that would be great

It's a Dell inspiron N5110 , im not sure what the WiFi card is i'll have to check when im home

 

What router are you using? Some are know not to be reliable.

 

It's a tp-link, but the problem isnt with the router, because i changed it and still had the problem, and i used another laptop and didnt suffer from any problems

 

What is your renew lease time set at? Is your SSID visible? The reason I ask I have seen some pc not renew the lease if hidden.

 

Sorry for the late reply,

Downloads, drivers are supposedly up to date, but if u have a website where i can scan if the drivers are up to date that would be great..
The wifi card is Dell wireless 1701 802.11 b/g/n

Blue, where can i find the renew lease time?

 

The lease time is in the router, Wireless section.

 

Is there another name for the renew lease time? cause i can't find it in the router's page

 

If you're using a TP-Link router it's probably in DHCP section and is called "Address Lease Time"

 

ok found it... lease time is 259200 secs

 

Lease time is 72 hours for those who don't feel like doing the conversion, might have been a good idea to do it, 259200 seconds is rather obscure.

 

lol, thanks tijo

Basically i don't even know what the lease time resembles, so i didn't know if they wanted to know the value in seconds or hours. Therefore i just pasted it as it is.

 

What is the ISP lease time on the WAN connection? Most ISP's renew this at 1/2 the time. Your variation in time could be when you connect vs when this is renewing. If I recall ATT use a very short lease time, 2hr. On some of their networks I've notice the IP changes quite often with it. This will cause a pause but since the DNS number do not change very often the pause is minimal but very noticeable.

I had one router that had a firmware bug that did not handle this correctly and would drop the connection when it expired. The bug was that the lease time was 4 days and could not handle the large values (>2 days). Once tracked down a firmware update cured the problem.

 

I saw a similar instance too although it was slightly different. It would handle any value fine but when lease expired it would have trouble associating a client again for a while. One would think basic things like that wouldn't be a problem

 

The router should have some function to reserve your IP and you can rule out the lease timing thing.

 

Hey i noticed something, not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but whenever i have something connected to the usb port this problem occurs! when nothing is connected to the port the connection is stable!

I still need to test this a bit more to make sure its not a coincidence but this is what i started noticing since yesterday!

 

Reserved IP ONLY impacts the IP address assignment. NOT the Lease time.

The USB could impact the disconnect problem. I could see a lag if working right but not disconnect. I would report it as a BUG in the Firmware. Another reason to use a true NAS.

 

Sorry Blue but what's a true NAS? and i didnt get if you mean the USB could or could not impact the problem?

 

NAS is Network Attached Storage.
Router may not be powerful enough (in terms of CPU) to deal pseudo-NAS.

What are you connecting to the USB port anyway?

 

You never mentioned what router you ave either, it's possible it's the firmware, but it's also possible that your router CPU and/or RAM aren't up to the task of handling USB + many connections at the same time.

A true NAS will give you much better performance anyways, but those aren't exactly cheap.

 

umm no no , i mean when i connect something to the usb port of the laptop

 

Should have mentioned that when you said USB port.

Maybe your router doesn't have a USB port, but many do have one now so it's normal for us to assume router USB port. Does it matter which device you connect to your laptop or not?

I'd try installing the latest chipset drivers as well as doing a full uninstall and reinstall of your wireless drivers.

 

That really strange for it to happen on the pc. It would make be to believe that when the USB is plugged in it's resetting the buss for the new device. May check to see if there are any BIOS updates and drivers from the mfg. MS at times will over write mfg to put there own in.