Router temporarily "drops" internet when connecting.

We only use laptops on our network, and my father who uses some kind of mac can be using the internet just fine, and then when I turn on my laptop and connect to the internet, it connects just fine, but the router no longer offers anyone the internet for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until I unplug the router and plug it back in.

I currently have a Linksys wrt110, but I do not believe this is hardware specific, as this problem used to occur with my old router, but only when my mother would visit and try to connect to the internet with her mac. When I bought this newer router this problem never happened for quite a while. But now it is happening to me consistently and I feel real bad since this time I cant blame it on a half eaten piece of fruit, as I own a real computer, running vista.

I cant seem to find anything even remotely related to my problem when I search, but I am sure this has to be a common problem for someone! Please Help!

Also of note, the connection info icon says connected (local only) however I can not even browse to http://192.168.1.1 and when I try to let vista diagnose the problem it just tells me it is not receiving a response from the router...

 

Check the Router's DHCP and make sure that it is configured to give the number of IPs that your networked needs when every one is connected.

 

It is currently set to allow up to 50 people to connect... Should I reduce that number?

I think I may have figured it out though, it looks like my computer is currently using .100 which would be the first IP it hands out, but my father was already connected when I turned this laptop on a few moments ago, so maybe he had been given .100 and for some reason my PC likes having the first IP So yeah I imagine that conflict could cause this problem, which would resolve itself when my dad's comp tries to get a new ip.

I set my DHCP to reserve that ip address for my computer, so I shouldnt have this problem again.

No wonder I couldn't find anything related to my problem, I should have known this one! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

 

make sure all the PCs on the network are set to automatically recieve IP addresses. Sounds like you have possibly set yours to use .100 only?

 

Yeah that sounds like something I would do. I do all sorts of crazy things when I am drunk and trying to fix something. So far so good, I have not had this problem in a while.