Cable Modem/Wireless Router Dropping.

I have a small problem. There is a network of 3 computer (2 WinXP Home and 1 Win2K). In room number one is a Cable Modem, Wireless Router and a Computer. The setup comes into the modem, then to the router and hard wired to the computer running XP. In room number 2 is a computer that holds a signal of 97% and runs Win2K and finally another computer in room 3 that runs XP and holds a signal of 87 - 92%.

The Router US Robotics (USR8022)
The Wireless Cards Belkin w/ external antenna

The Problem, Computers 2 & 3 are being dropped from the network on multiple occasions and the users usually have to reset both the router and the modem in order to reconnect. I'm not quite sure if Computer 1 completely drops signal, but I could find out. Is there any suggestions on why this would happen?

I had a similar setup and never had this issue.

Has the router got the latest firmware? Maybe its an issue with this router??
Attenuation could be another reason. Is there any sort of pattern to the signal loss?

I had a similar problem at home, I have a Belkin wireless router and linksys cards in my laptops and they had a signal of 70& or over but the kept losing the signal at irregular intervals

I had the router wireless mode on Long Range Mixed 11b + 11G, I tried changing the mode to just Mixed 11b+11g and the problem stopped.

Im not quite sure what the difference is between the modes (other than the obvious) but I think the long range mode made the signal susceptible to outside interfearence??

I didnt look to deeply into the difference, I was happy as long as it worked!

I'll have to check it out, I mean the hardware is good. It is my old router and they purchased their own cards. I think it is currently set at 802.11b. I know the cards ar B & G, but the router may only be B.

Default settings of most windows boxes have it where it re-authhencates
every 3 mins...
I have a buffalo card that did just that.

Go to wireless Network Connection Properties
Go to properties of the network ssid
go to Athenitication Tab
Un-Check Enable IEEE 802.1x authentication for this network
Click ... OK an OK to save

Fixed mine.... and since then fixed a number of other wireless problems for customers

Hope this helps

I have seen this caused by spyware too. What the spyware did was corrupt one of the files within the TCP/IP stack so i had to rebuild the winsock section of it. Also a common problem from AOL install/uninstalls and kazaa removal. If you run a winsock utility fix it will rebuild that section of the stack for you

http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html

I believe this is the one I used to fix this similar problem.

when I do an IPConfig the Connection-specific DNS Suffix drops when ever the wireless connection drops. When I reset the modem it still stays blank until I do an ipconfig /renew. It seems like this happens whenever the connected computer connects or disconnects to AOL. How can I stop this? The other person refuses to give up AOL.

it looks like the error is being caused by a third party PPP adapter providing the system another IP Address. The network is showing the original information and the PPP adapter is showing another IP address.

I think the problem here is AOL and the fact they do not realy support home networking. I think the Horse hinted in another post that, you could use mac spoofing to get round, "cheapskate" isp's, or something like that.

what would be a good method to test and resolve the issue?

Quote:

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AOL does not currently support home networking for cable broadband users. However we are working hard to make home networking available for cable users in 2004.

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The above is from Aol

The only way i can see without doing some more research is to use ics. Connect pc a to internet and leave it connected. Then set pc b and c connect to a through a switch to connect to a and use ics to connect to the net.

Edit

Just found some more info you may find interesting:

Quote:

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in the router config you put your username and password and as long as the router is switch on then connection to aol will be constant.only trouble you might have is aol do not allow multiple pc's on one connection(networking).
again in the router config you will have mac spoofing capabilities here you have to get the mac address from the main pc (start -run-cmd- type ipconfig/all the physical address is the mac address) add it in space provided, this should fool aol that there is only one pc connected

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http://www.computing.net/networking/...rum/20544.html

Edit

I have found out it is not AOL, the problem happened twice and no one else was online. I had to reset the USR8022 and the Cable Modem twice in 5 minutes. Still talking suggestions, this happened with the only system online being a Win2K system using a belkin wireless card and communicating w/ a USR8022 Wireless Router.

Ok so if your sure it's not aol that is the problem you have to look at hardware. I would start with the phone line, conntact your phone company and get them to run a line test.

Then remove the router from the network. Just use the modem connected to one box. Test to see at this point if you are still having problems. Look to see if there is a firmware update for the modem. Once you have a stable connection with one box add the router back into the system and test reliability again. If all is well start adding the other boxes one at a time checking reliability at each stage untill you either have the network working as it should be or you have isolated the problem.