Connection drop-outs, network dead...

dragon2309

dragon2309

P.I Dragon
I know this is a long post but please read it cause I really REALLY need help on this....

I'm at a loss as to whats up here, its driving me insane. It al started yesterday, for no apparent reason. Heres the problem.

I'll be surfing the internet like normal, on MSN as usual, and suddenyl my Wireless network connection speed will drop to something awful like 5.5Mbps or 11Mbps, even though my signal strength is still reported as Excellent on 5 out of 5 bars.

After about a minute of it being really slow like that the internet connection will drop out completely, me being the inquisitive nerd i am did an ipconfig /all at differnt times, i found this, as soon as it drops the internet connection the stats are as follows:

grrrrak1.jpg


Obviously it has no IP or subnet, the default gateway is blank, so kinda signifies a router problem (ill come to that later). The DHCP server (should be the router, 192.168.1.1, but isnt). Obviously none of these settings are correct and hence no internet.

A short while after this is did another ipconfig /all and found this:

grrr2ou4.jpg


Well, this is a bit different, i've lost the report on the DHCP completely, ive got an "AutoConfiguration IP" which ive never even heard of before, the IP os completely wrong, i should be 192.168.1.4 on this network. The subnet mask is getting close to being right, it states 255.255.0.0 when it should be 255.255.255.0

So again none of these settings are right.

My immediate thought was the router is palying about (BT Voyager 2100), so i went in to the admin panel, everything looked ok... checked firmware versions, mine were a bit outdated, upgraded firmware, still the same problem.

Change philosophy to it might be my cards problem, resinsatlled drivers, reinstalled application, still the same, changed the PCI slot its in, still the same, let windows control it instead of the app, still the same.

The onyl way to get my internet connection back is to restart my PC, not even countless times of disabling and reconnecting to the wireless network wont bring my internet connection back up...

Little help...?

dragon
 
It has been Hot here in the US, do you think the heat has affected your router? Is it hot over across the pond?

Looks to be cloudy, and about 75F.

How old is the network card, and router?
 
The card and router are the same age about a year and a bit, came as a package when we bought the broadband. And yes it is hot here, well, hot for our UK standards, its about 30*c here now, so it is possible the heat damaged the router. A bit hard to test for though, seeing as i would have to go and buy a new router just to see if its at fault.

dragon
 
You can always test it out...

Try this.
Turn the router of for a bit, point a fan at it if possible. Let it cool down for 10-15 min. Restart the pc (after the 15 min) and start the router modem and computer all at the same time. See how long the connection is good for. ipconfig the connection once it is working, then also again once it fails. Try to see if the time interval has changed, even though the router has had a time to cool off.

You can also try sustaining the connection with a fan blowing on the router and modem. If it is on a carpet or cloth, try to put it on a firm surface. Make sure all the air vents are not covered.

Let me know...
 
hi, ok, im back, no i didnt get too mad, only when it carried on doing the same thing, even after a i left it for a long time, ik opened the window that was behind it and had a full cool breeze on it the whole time, it didnt help much (well, it didnt help at all actually)

Still does the same thing.

Any more ideas, cos im all out?

dragon
 
So you had it off, totally unplugged an cooling off for the 10-15 min? 5 min with a nice breeze...
 
Yeh, i unplugged it all and left it by the open window for like 10 mins, then plugged it all back in, got ready to power it on, got my PC ready, turned them both on, connection came up fine, like it always does, i signed into MSN, i searched the web, alsways monitoring speed, started playing a flash game or two, went to ebay etc... a page took a wile to load, checked speed, bloody 5.5Mbps again, waited abit, no internet. ipconfig /all, same as the above screens.

No difference in time taken from the first times, took around 20-30mins to drop the connection, as it usually does.

dragon
 
OK so this is a wirelsss connection.. this may be interference. Try changing the channel for the broadcast to another (+/- 2 channels), try a few different channels, see if it helps.
 
ok, im on channel 1 by default, i changed to 3, still the same, i change to 6, still the same. I live in an area with a lot of old-ish people, so i doubt its conflicting wireless signals...

dragon
 
Well not necessarily conflicting with other wireless routers. It can conflit with wireless phones, cell phones, bluetooth headsets... Almost any of the newer wireless stuff.

Do you have the latest driver for your Ethernet card (if available).

What has changed since this started happening?
 
Well, we dont have wireless phones, they are all normal wired units. I forgot to mention that aswell, i upgraded tot he latest drivers for my wireless card (BT Voyager 1040 PCI 802.11g), still the same.

And thats what completely stumped me, nothing at all (to my knowledge) has changed, its seemingly completely random. Which is why i get annoyed, i can nunderstand if it breaks because i screwed it up, but when things dont work for n reason, it pisses me off somewhat...

Saying all of this though the connection has been up and running for about a hour and a half now...

dragon
 
Is it still working dragon? How many computers are you running on your network? All wireless?
If you wouldn't mind (I'm sure you're just about ready to try anything by now), disconnect all computers and turn them off. Unplug everything from the router (if there is anything plugged in). Press and hold the reset button on your router. Start and connect ONE computer. Run through your router setup wizard again and see how long you stay up.
This is, however, a fairly risky procedure so don't do it if you dont feel completely comfortable performing it and setting everything back up.
 
It sounds like a router issue to me. Can you manaully configure your network and assign the IP and DHCP yourself? See if that stabilizes the problem. I know its a pain if you have several PCs on your network, but it's worth a try. Also, are you using any type of WEP or WAP? Disable that temporaily.
 
Ku-sama said:
try updating the firmware on the router
Click to expand...
hey ku-sama, yeh, i tired that in one of my first steps, didnt make any difference at all, thanks

Crypto said:
It sounds like a router issue to me. Can you manaully configure your network and assign the IP and DHCP yourself? See if that stabilizes the problem. I know its a pain if you have several PCs on your network, but it's worth a try. Also, are you using any type of WEP or WAP? Disable that temporaily.
Click to expand...
Yeh, i can turn DHCP off and manually configure on each station. A lot of work though, I have 2 wired PC's and 8 wireless PC's. Im not 100% sure, because the wired PC's arent in use very much, but im not entirely sure if the problem is wireless based or complete network based... have to find out. And yes, im running 128-bit WEP, cycling between 4 different WEP keys every week. Thats never posed a problem before though... I also have Hidden SSID activated.

wells said:
Is it still working dragon? How many computers are you running on your network? All wireless?
Click to expand...
Hi wells, i answered this bit above ^^

wells said:
If you wouldn't mind (I'm sure you're just about ready to try anything by now), disconnect all computers and turn them off. Unplug everything from the router (if there is anything plugged in). Press and hold the reset button on your router. Start and connect ONE computer. Run through your router setup wizard again and see how long you stay up.
This is, however, a fairly risky procedure so don't do it if you dont feel completely comfortable performing it and setting everything back up.
Click to expand...
Well, in a round about way i've already done this, in my earlier posts it describes how i turned the router off and left it by an open window to cool down in case heat was the problem (it wasnt), when switching that back on, i only connected one PC via wireless to it, still the same problem. Oh yeh, and about the reset button part, when i upgraded firmware i had to cycle through that procedure about 5 times, so ive already done that as well....

LOL, seems everything has been tried already, confused yet, agreeing with me that it's seemingly random yet??

Lol, thanke everyone for the help, dragon
 
See if you can connect directly to your modem. This will eliminate any possibility of a router issue.
EDIT: You'll of course have to use a wired connection. You still dont know if this is a wireless or network problem. (hint hint :D)
 
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