Need advice on Wireless router

For a while now i have had a D-Link DI-524 i have been satisfied with it. At first i had some trouble when my laptop's internet kept cutting in and out, but then i updated my laptop's wireless card driver and that solved the problem. So apparently it was not the router's fault. And from then on i didn't have any noticeable problems with it.

But ever since my brother got a laptop a few months ago, he has had problems connecting to the internet. I posted about it here when it happened.

And now he is having problems with connecting on his iPod Touch. A number of times i have had to delete the wireless configuration settings and re-enter them (mainly putting it the WEP key), but that only fixes it for a while.

To add to all that, I am now having internet problems on my laptop. It has been really slow and often times-out when loading web pages and can't even get through an anti-virus update.

So i am thinking of getting a new wireless router, but i want to know two things before i do.
Firstly, i want to know if it is really the router that is the problem (as it wasn't the first time when i updated my laptop's wireless driver). The more problems i have, though, the more i am starting to blame the router.
Secondly, i would like to know that the same problems aren't going to happen with the new router. Obviously it is not possible for you guys to tell me this, but perhaps you could tell me what brand/model you think is the best. I have heard both good and bad things about D-Link as well as other brands like Netgear or Linksys so i don't know who to believe. I should let you know that although i am a computer programmer, networking is not really my thing so i would not know a good router from a bad router.

I can give any additional info if required.

 

Have you tried updating the firmware on the router?
Go to the DLink support page for your router and see if there is newer firmware for your router. Make sure you are checking the correct version of your router as there can be several in a series for the same router model.
Current firmware information is in the router configuration pages.

Age may be playing into the router also. I just replaced a 5 year old linksys router that was slowing down on the wireless connections. I did not have connection losses but wireless transfer speeds were slowly creeping down from the usual.

 

Do you have any computers connected via cable to your router? If so, are you experiencing any problems there? If not, I suggest you connect your laptop via cable and see whether your Internet connection is stable. Why do this? I think you need to determine whether your modem might be the culprit instead of your router.

 

I already did that a while ago and it didn't seem to do much (although i didn't actually have that much of a problem at the time). Anyway, the latest update was around 2007.

No i actually haven't tried that yet. The next time my brother has problems connecting i will tell him to do that.

Aside from connecting straight to the modem, is there any other way to tell if the router is having problems. I looked at the logs today and saw that i had an "Unrecognized attempt blocked" about once or twice a second! I had googled it and found out that it was quite common to get these kinds of attacks, just the sad truth of the world we live in. Just as long as they are blocked, i am happy.
But other than that i can't see anything else in the logs. Every few minutes there is this:
Monday December 21, 2009 19:42:48 DHCP:renew
Monday December 21, 2009 19:42:48 DHCP:ack(DOL=120,T1=60,T2=105)
but that's normal i suppose.

 

I wasn't suggesting going straight to the modem; i was suggesting connecting a computer to the router via Ethernet cable as opposed to wireless. But, going straight to the modem would also be a valid troubleshooting step.

So, you see hundreds of attempts there, always occurring at that frequency? Do you live in an area with many nearby neighbors? It's common to see such access attempts if you are near enough to other computer users or even drive-by hackers, but I wouldn't think the frequency would remain at that level over an extended time. Have you ever tried using WPA instead of WEP? WPA is more secure.

I don't see this happening in my DI-524 (hardware version A3). Indeed, DHCP:renew does not happen unless I do it by accessing the router control panel and clicking a button to renew DHCP. So, I'm wondering whether this is a sign that your router is failing. Here's a good article: What Causes A Router To Fail?

 

Ok, ok. That would work too. It would also be a bit easier 'cos i wouldn't have to pull out the cable from the modem to the router.

I live in a fairly quite neighbourhood, but these attacks could be coming from anywhere in the world, right? I mean, a hacker could have dozens of computers running night and day just trying to connect to random IP addresses in the hope that one gets through.
I have considered using WPA but i don't know how to use it, it doesn't just need a 128-bit key like WEP does. Besides, all those attacks are being blocked so WEP is doing it's job.

I posted that log assuming that it was quite normal, but i thought i'd post it anyway. Looks like it's not so ordinary. I thought that it was just renewing it's lease but now that i look at the connection details i see that it expires in a week. Keep in mind that i don't know much about networking .
Thanks for that link, too. I will have a look at it later.

 

I think i have solved the problem i was having with slow internet on my laptop. It's quite silly really, about a week ago my mum was decorating the house for Christmas, i put the tree up and she draped some tinsel around the house. Well she wrapped on end of it around the router's antenna to hold it so it wouldn't fall down. I said to her that it might interfere with the wireless but i was half joking and didn't really expect that to happen. Well today when i went to plus my laptop into it, i remembered that, so i took the tinsel off it and i seem to have normal connection again!

Although that still doesn't solve any of the problems my brother is having with his laptop.

 

Ok, maybe it didn't solve the problem . I am noticing the signal strength is at maximum again, whereas it was only 4 out of 5 before. But when i ping google.com, it still takes around 3 seconds.