Wireless Networking Flaky

Hi all.


I've got a problem which now has me baffled (the circumstances of which are also a bit strange - a decent router/modem/firewall being used as a netwrok tool only, with DIALUP internet (GACK) which is shared...).

I've got two machines.

A Dell desktop and a Dell notebook. Both are less than a month old (the notebook arrived on Thursday). Both running Windows XP Home (French version which makes problem solving pretty hard by itself).

Router is a Netgear DG834G (Wireless ADSL Modem Router Firewall), but the router is NOT being used as a modem (we don't have ADSL yet - it is a rented house and in France it's tough to get ADSL in a name other than the owner... will get 3G wireless for the notebook this coming week).

So. The router is used solely as a network enabler... the desktop is connected to the router by a standard Ethernet cable, and the laptop is connected using WiFi.

And there is where the problem starts.

The laptop drops its connection about every five minutes, and one has to run the "repair this network connection" icon in Network Favourites (or run the Dell Network Assistant) in order to reconnect.

The notebooks' wireless network connection is configured completely 'vanilla' - IP address automatic, DNS likewise.

The desktop's wired network settings are the same - IP and DNS automatically fetched.


The desktop connects to the web via an internal fax-modem - as I mentioned, dial-up. That connection is likewise automatically allocated IP and DNS by the internet provider, and it is completely stable. It is shared by both machines (when the network is functioning, the internet conenction sharing works just fine, albeit at dialup speeds).

The notebook is only 5m from the router (would prefer for it to be farther, but the problem is the same n'importe quelle distance), and besides I think that there is something else afoot, and here is why...

Prior to getting the notebook, we had an old Dell desktop (a 550Mhz Piii - yep, ancient) as the second PC. It was connected to the same router by an ethernet connection. It ALSO used to drop its network connection frequently.

I notice that other folks have threads with similar problems, and I have read them and tried most of what they have been advised, but to no avail. I've tried hard-wiring the IP, subnet mask and gateway values as follows:

192.168.0.1, 255.255.255.0, 192.168.0.1 on desktop, and

192.168.0.5, 255.255.255.0, 192.168.0.1 (also tried the 'default' subnet mask of 255.0.0.0) on notebook. That did nothing.


I'm offering a 25 euro PayPal reward to anyone who gives me a solution (by which I mean a set of instructions that FIXES the problem. (By "fixes"I mean that the problem must disappear and remain disappeared for a minimum of 24 hours - i.e., one entire day without the notebook falling off the network. A second criterion is that the instructions must be capable of being followed by a plonker like me). That should give someone invcentive to spend a half hour working out why I'm such a 'nul' at this network stuff...


Cheerio,


GT.

 

Hi there TimP.

You have to be careful saying 'halibut' - you could get stoned for that, for Cod's sake (har har - fish joke retort)...

I had thought of the idle power saving thing, but had decided against trying it out (after all, the notebook was always connected to AC power, so it should not have been activated... or so ze Germans would have you believe).

Oddly enough, the notebook has not fallen off the network since I posted the initial post... and I have done nothing except re-'hard set' the IP addresses and subnet masks for my desktop, which should not make an iota of difference. Bizarre.


Cheers,


GT.

 

One problem appears to have been a simple IP conflict.

The router wanted to refer to itself as 192.168.0.1, but that was also the value I had hard-wired as the IP for the desktop (and for the primary DNS since the desktop is what conencts to the internet).

However that's not really what I think was the cause... because once I fixed that, the network was still flaky.

I then messed around a bit with the setup for the Netgear (which is STUPID - no app, just a silly HTML interface which is not very helpful). The CD included some tweaks for the wireless network which seem to have been required (rather than relying on the 'the settings default ought to be OK' paradigm which drives my life).

Thus far the thing has not fallen over once since I did the wireless network setup - and I have played through the notebook, episodes of the Sopranos that are stored on the desktop... and also ran a 1-hour music playlist and a Yoga video - again, stored on the desktop - over the network (I mainly just wanted things with long running times which would make it obvious if the network fell over while I was doing other stuff).

So it's fixed. Thank Crom and the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Let all fall down before His Noodly Majesty).

Ta-da!!!


Next week I get the 3G card for the notebook, at which time I will go from dial-up connected through the desktop, to wireless ADSL2 connected through a PCMCIA card on the laptop. I bet that I can find a way to screw that transition up royally. In theory, nothing about the network should change (except for which internet connection is used, noting that the new connection must also be shared). But as the saying goes, although in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there usually is.