Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Frequent Wireless Connection Drops


bearcatnat
12-09-2005, 06:29 AM
Hello,
I am at my wit's end! :( I have a Gateway laptop with a Microsoft PCI Wireless adapter, connecting to the internet through a Netgear router. I've had the router and card about a year, and they have worked perfectly until recently. I just got a new motherboard for my laptop. I lost my wireless settings and had to set it up again.

Here's what happens: When I first boot up, the network/internet seem to work fine, most of the time. After some random interval, maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour, the internet connection appears to get dropped. The network will still show as being connected, but no webpages will load and I cannot access network shared files. Sometimes if I wait several minutes, the webpage will eventually load, but most of the time nothing works. If I reboot the system, I SOMETIMES get the network working again.

I have also noticed that pinging is very unreliable. Sometimes 100% loss, sometimes 50%, and sometimes 100% replies. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to this behavior.

Here's my settings/details:

Netgear MV814v2 Router
Microsoft M-720 PCI Wireless adapter
Efficient Networks DSL Modem (SBC Yahoo service)
Windows XP SP2 on Desktop & Laptop
Client IP Address: 192.168.0.3
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.0.1

DNS: 192.168.0.1
Alt DNS: 4.4.2.1

WEP On / SSID Broadcast On
Enable Authentication Off
Channel 11
Windows Firewalls Off

Maybe something is wrong with my settings...or maybe my card has gone bad?? What is their lifespan?? Mine's a year old, but I do use it everyday for several hours...I also thought maybe the PCI slot for the new motherboard was bad, but I can't see how it could be if it works sometimes.

I have tried everything: changing DNS settings, WEP on/off, SSID broadcast on/off, changed router time-out to 0, unchecked/checked "Enable authentication...", etc...! Does anybody know what's going on??? My wireless network was so stable and FAST before! HELP!!!

Thanks,
bearcatnat

Greenstead
12-11-2005, 10:29 PM
The most common cause for this type of problem is the router firmware. Check Netgear for the latest firmware. Ditto for the wireless adapter.

bearcatnat
12-12-2005, 03:04 AM
I did update the Netgear router to the newest firmware. I haven't been able to figure out how to do this for the adapter. The only thing I saw at the Microsoft website was a software update for wireless connectivity. I haven't been using the Microsoft software, since I updated to Win XP and it has built in software. You would think that a Microsoft adapter would work with Win XP??

Greenstead
12-12-2005, 02:39 PM
This might help for the MS updates:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814445

You connection settings look OK so I would expect your configuration of the card is OK. You might try changing the channel in the router (the card will follow automatically).

bearcatnat
12-12-2005, 06:13 PM
Thanks, I will try these two things and see what happens. It's hard to tell if changes help or not for a while...sometimes the connection works great! We'll see....

N. Blake