Router problems after kids started using itouch

Grasping at straws here... Are your other devices hardwired? (Meaning: Is the iPod Touch the only wireless device?) Also, how long is your encryption phrase? I have both a WRT54G v3 and a WRT54GS. I've had issues in the past with both dropping wireless connections when the encryption phrase was longer than 30 characters or so. I had the same problem regardless of whether I used WEP, WPA, or WPA2. After I reduced the length of the encryption phrase, it resolved that issue.

Another problem I've had is maintaining connectivity with some wireless cards. I have a Linksys WMP54G PCI wireless card that maintains a connection with no problems, but a D-Link DWL-G122 vD1 USB wireless card that will stay connected for a while and then disconnect. The D-Link won't reconnect until I power cycle the router. Unfortunately, because I don't use the computer with the Linksys card and the computer with the D-Link card simultaneously, I can't tell if you the D-Link effects the Linksys card's ability to stay connected when he D-Link fights with the router.

 

No, it wouldnt make sense to increase the beacon interval if you're losing connection. Max is 1000 miliseconds anyway. Beacon interval is just the time between beacons. beacon frames broadcast the ssid and some other info about the AP. it might make sense to decrease it if that actually the problem, but increasing wouldnt make sense. ill do some more research on it though and see if i can come up with something.

 

I'm far from an expert on this topic, myself, but... The beacon interval is how often the router will broadcast the beacon packet (1 - 65,535 milliseconds). I would interpret that as how many milliseconds between each beacon packet. The default for my WRT54GS is 100 (or 10 beacon packets every second, if I did the math correctly). The manual for the router indicates: "A beacon is a packet broadcast by the Router to synchronize the wireless network." However, I always thought of them as being more of a broadcast to wireless devices making them aware of the network's existence--including the SSID (if not hidden). Changing the interval shouldn't hurt anything. The reason they're recommending you increase the time between the beacon packets is most likely to reduce the traffic on your wireless network. Changing to 60,000 milliseconds would be 1 beacon packet every minute. I believe most wireless devices can request the network information from the router without waiting for the beacon interval, anyway--like refreshing the network list on a wireless device or using applications like Netstumbler to identify the wireless network.

 

Regarding firmware updates...

You should be able to do just the latest & greatest and not have to step through all of the firmware updates to-date. If you decide to apply a firmware update, just be sure you do it from a wired connection. You don't want to risk any connectivity loss while you're applying it.