Hello!
Bear with me, because theres quite a bit to this problem.
My wireless network connection is dropping frequently, and Im only downstairs on the laptop.
My laptop is a Sony Vaio, and its got SP2 with all the latest (To a point) drivers supplied by Microsoft.
The equipment has been placed more than 2 feet away from any monitors or computer equipment. It is pretty much in the centre of the room and elevated about 2 feet off of the floor.
It isnt running too hot.
The latest firmware doesnt offer any bugfixes for connectivity issues.
The connection strength stays at "excellent" at all times, but the actual speed of data varies between 1mbps and 24mbps.
When Im sat with the laptop within a foot of the router, the same thing happens at times.
Youre guaranteed to get patchy connections downstairs in the lounge. The lounge is directly below the room that the router is stored. The strength meter always says excellent.
Wired connections are perfect.
I have done a ping -t 192.168.0.1 in the laptops CMD.EXE and it will most of the time when connected come up with ICMP responses, but have occasional timeouts. These timeouts become more frequent until you dont get anything. All the way through this, the signal strength is "excellent".
The only way to fix this seems to be to reboot the router (Only lasts for about 2 mins) or to repair my wireless connection from the laptop (lasts for about 30 seconds) before it all kicks back off again.
Any thoughts? Im completely baffled. How can you have 100% signal strength and absolutely no data transfer?
Karl = wits end.
Oh and by the way, this is the second router of the same model that Ive had these problems with, so its not a faulty unit.
Any help anybody can give is greatly appreciated,
Cheers guys,
Karl.
Hi,
My old work laptop was a Vaio, and I had CONSTANT wireless woes.
Turned out to be the crappy adapter they used. What model is in yours ?
Mines a VAIO VGN FS215S.
Ive never had wireless problems before, and Ive never had problems with Netgear before. :\
I got a rangemax dongle free with the router. Do you reckon I should install it and see if it makes any difference? Itd pee me off no end due to the fact that my built-in wireless should be working. :|
Ill have the rangemax dongle off you ;)
Try changing wi-fi channels, if someone else close to you is using the next channel it can result in problems. You should be able to check for other networks from your laptop. Try to maintain a gap of one channel either side, which can be difficult, if not impossible, in some areas
1,6,11 are apparently the preferred channels. If a neighbour has one of those TV resenders that will play havoc with your wireless. If you have an Xbox360, that may also interfere with it as the 360 wireless controllers etc all work on 2.4GHz which is the same frequency as wireless networking protocols.
I would give the dongle a go - I had no end of bother with my old Vaio and ALL Actiontec devices.