I have wireless internet in my room from the router in my sisters room where the broadband is. It keeps discinnecting and is driving me absolutely potty. The signal is always either "very low"or "low". The distance between our rooms is less than the 50 metres that it works for. Is there anything I can do to improve the signal?

I was wondering when this topic would appear- you've finally lost all patience!

• Point the aerials at each other on your wireless equipment
• Move metallic objects out of the way if possible - they block the signal
• Avoid using the microwave

Humm,

Unusal to be honest to be suffering problems.

a) Think about the geogrphy of where the router is in relation to your PC.

Clear the way between the two (dont knock any walls down though!

Get the router and the PC as close as possible. Maybe extention cable on the router to get it close to your wall etc.

c) Make sure sis isnt drapping her cloths over the router just to annoy you LOL.

Check the aerial is tightly connected to the back of the router, my kids play with mine and it often works loose and then gets very temperamental..

Are you sure there are no other telephonic devices connected to the phone line via other sockets which do not have a microfilter? This can also cause a lot of trouble.. my Sky+ box was a case in point which I forgot to filter and it niggled the connection for ages (not the wireless bit, just the broadband bit, but the result is still the same -- dropping connections..)

Otherwise, it is probably the construction of your house, is it like that apartment in Ghostbusters made out of that very rare material which ends up summoning Zuul ? lol

We have thick stone wall sin our house and in order for it to work in my office and Johns office we have to have a "booster" (can't think what the technical name is for it)on the landing that picks up the signal from the router and sends it on.

We're still lo-tech - 20 metres of network cable, hidden away around the edges of rooms. No problems with iffy connections though

Ditto - we now have five computers permanently connected to our network. The only grouse is sharing the printer, and having to bring up Alpha (our master computer) to print anything - a real pain during term time when I'm the only one in.

You could buy a print server: a little box that connects to the network that you plug your printer into; that way you don't need to have the computer with the printer plugged into switched on to print. They cost about £30, let me know if you want more details (no, I'm not a salesman ).

You can get minimal computers that connect to the router and drive the printer. A quick Google search found a wireless connected one, which is a slightly different solution to the same problem, here for £92.95.

Thanks for that, YAP. I'll put it to my other half when he comes in.

andante doesn't have wireless networking though - she's wired, so the £30 set up should do the job for her.

Thanks YAP and kenm. I managed to reply to the wrong post a minute ago. £30 definitely seems worthwhile.

Yes, I had to go out before I could find a cabled solution among all those Google hits.

Anyone got any ideas to solve my problem??

We have broadband (just) one computer connected and one downstairs wireless. Quite frequently we just lose the connection and I have to reset the router, reboot and set up the connection to the ISP provider again (does this make sense). This seems to solve the problem but after a while it all fails again and we con;t get on the internet until its all re set up and re connected.

Is it correct that you have a wireless router connected to the broadband, and two computers with wireless cards talking to the router?

Are you sure all your telephonic devices (other modems, telephones including extensions, Sky, fax etc.) connected to their sockets via a microfilter? Even one missing microfilter can cause chaos...

Isn't wireless computing such fun.

My wireless broadband connection was dropping out for fun - some of you might remember my description when we were discussing Coughing Hedgehog and Baby Spider recently.

Although I now use a Netgear router, originally I was using the Wanadont Home router, with its usb connected adapter. At one point in my dealings with Wanadont, they sent me a job lot of their Home boxed + peripherals - they all went into the shed at the bottom of the garden.

My wife was not having a problem with her laptop connecting to the net. I knew my usb hardware was ok - everything else worked.

I finally thought or using one of the adapter's that came with the job lot. Problem instantly solved.

Question for the incredibly useful YAP (rapidly turning into a National Institution, in my book).

I built my own pc. so I know how to add components. Might I be better off intsalling a wireless network card?

Steve

Thanks for the suggestions, I have checked all the leads in the back of the router, nothings loose. As for the walls that mrbouffant mentioned... well theres a bathroom in between... so that would be two walls. Is that the problem d'you all reckon?

I know that problem - our last router did something similar. As soon as there was a blip on the phone that caused it to lose its signal for a fraction of a second it would disconnect from the internet and refuse to reconnect without being switched off and on again.

Our newer one, thankfully, is better behaved - it can automatically reconnect if the connection is dropped. Curiously, and I have no idea why, this option was not enabled out of the box - I had to delve into the configuration to turn it on

I think, given all the routers seem to be fairly standard kit, you may well have a similar option - if it works, it would solve all of your problems. The following may scare you, but have a go

1) Go to the computer that is wired in, not the wireless one
2) Go to 'Start', pick 'Run'
3) Type 'cmd' and press OK. A DOS box will open.
4) Type in

ipconfig

and press enter. Some details will appear, the line you're interested in is 'Default Gateway: 10.0.0.2' or whatever it says - it might be 192.168.0.1 or similar

5) Open a web browser and type in the number of your default gateway, e.g. type in 10.0.0.2. If my assumptions are correct, you'll be asked for a username and password. The username is admin and the password is either conexant or epicrouter . If neither of these work - sorry, I don't know how to configure your router by guesswork

6) Assuming it works, you'll be at your router configuration page. You may, or may not, need to scroll down at this point and click 'Advanced Setup' if the only boxes you can see are one for username and one for password.

7) Scroll down the left hand frame and pick 'WAN'

8) Look for the 'Disconnect Timeout' and change it to 0

9) Look for 'Automatic Reconnect', make sure it's ticked

10) Look for a 'Submit' button - click it

11) Click 'Save Configuration (and Reboot)'

Hopefully that should do the trick. If you don't have any of the options I mentioned then your router might be different to the ones I'm used to, in which case I'm stumped.

Steve: just out of interest, what would this wireless network card be, to connect to your wife's laptop so she could go onto the internet through your computer? If so, it would probably be a good idea, and mean the laptop could go onto the internet from anywhere in the house. Or am I missing the point here?

This is difficult to describe as I do not really understand it.

Wanadoo (or Wanadont, as anyone battling with their lack-of-help system will rapidly come to label it) provided me with their Home router. The router connects as usual to the phone line. The idea is that the network is wireless. Therefore, the router came with a couple of adapters that plug into a usb port; the adapters talk to the router to provide a wireless network.

I think.

The adapter is a little silver box about the size of the palm of my hand. It plugs into a usb cable which plugs into a usb port. To install it, I have to run the Wanadont Home installation procedure; Windows xp cannot find a driver for it. My wife's lappy's adapter is using the original Home installation, along with a little tweaking from the Netgear installation software. I just hope we never have to do a clean reinstall on her machine; I will never recreate her connection.

My limited understanding is that, without the adapter I would need to install a wireless networking card into my pc, that windows would detect the card and install the appropriate driver (or demand the software that came with it).

Wanadont wanted to make sure that subscribers using its broadband would be unable to connect to any other network (memo to myself; my 1 year contract must be about up, so time to look for a proper provider). The Home router would not access any other network. The adapter is only supposed to connect to the Home router; I have found a way to make it behave differently.

Don't worry if this makes no sense at all, YAP. I have lived with the wretched system for a year and am still confused by it.

Of course, any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Aren't computers fun?

Steve

Apparently the Wanadoo wireless internet adapters:


are made by Inventel. If you go to Inventel's support page you might be able to register your adapter and get some drivers for it.

My memories of Wanadoo, back from when they were called freeserve, was that any software they made took over everything internet related on one's machine - internet explorer toolbars, Outlook Express provided by Freeserve etc. etc. I'm not surprised that nothing's changed with their hardware now Hopefully, you should be able to get some drivers from Inventel and not have to waste the hardware.

Otherwise - you could get a PCI Wireless network adapter like this one for not too much money.

YAP

Thanks I am familiar with that page.....but not been to advanced settings, next time it drops out I'lll check the settings before I reboot. Not tempting fate by switching it off now!!!

Other commonly used password is admin.

Thanks YAP. I will register the adapter and see what I can find. I am going to buy the PCI card anyway. One of the great things about having assembled my own machine is the confidence it gave me to look under the bonnet whenever something is not right. It is great fun and removes the mistique - everybody should do it.

Steve