Wireless drops all the time

[Michael Thornton]

In my home network I have an Actiontec Wireless DSL modem/gateway 802.11g,
with Qwest as my provider. I have 2 PC's connecting to it, one laptop with
an SMC wireless PC card, and a desktop with a USB wireless adapter. The
pc's are only 10 to 15 feet away from the actiontec modem/gateway, yet my
connection seems to drop every couple opf minutes on both pc's. Sometimes I
have to disable and then re-enable the connection to get back on...sometimes
they get back on by themselves. I have this set up in an "ad-hoc" network.
I have the latest firmware and drivers on all the devices. Both PC's are
win xp home sp1. Is there possibly some other device in my house causing rf
problems? Like my wireless phone or even my cell phone?

Very frustrating.

TIA

 

[John]

Hi Mike,

I have a very similar problem to yours. I have a wireless
network with two hardwired computers and a wireless
notebook. About every 10 minutes the system goes down for
30 to 90 seconds then comes back up. I had some pretty
smart Computer Science grads look at it and they cannot
figure it out. It does drop out every time I pick up my 2
gigahertz cordless phone for sure. But that is not
usually the case.

Help!

John

 

[David Cook]

You have a separate router/wireless-access-point/gateway box.
And, then you also have two PCs with wireless adapters (that
you want to connect to the wireless-access-point and then on out
thru the DSL-modem to the Internet, right?

If so, then you do NOT want to be choosing 'Ad hoc' mode. You want
'infrastructure' mode.

(You know what we say about 'garbage in, garbage out', right? If you
don't know what your are doing, it's not EVER gonna work.)

Hope this helps...

Dave

 

[Michael Thornton]

Well, I read up abou the difference between ad-hoc and infrastructure...it
basically said that if the compnents were all the same (like all D-link) for
example, then you would go infrastructure, otherwise to use ad-hoc...but,
perhaps I read it wrong, or misundetsood what it said (which is probably the
case!). I will try putting it into infrastructure mode Dave.

Also, the Actiontec is a one piece job...access point/router/dsl modem...I
don't have separate boxes for that stuff.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Michael Thornton]

If I find an answer I will sure post it here for you!