problems with my LAN

[Edmond Dantes_1]

My LAN works fine for a few hours at a time and suddenly it says that my connection is not available.And sometimes it does that a few times a day.I keep changing frequencies but after awhile the problem arises again.I would like to know if you have any suggestions as to what may cause this problem because I surely would like to fix it permanently if this is at all possible.Thanks for reading and I'll be looking forward to your response.

[Patrick Terlisten]

Hello Edmond,

could you give us some more information about your enviroment. Which type of network connection do you use? wired or wireless? Which type of Switch oder Access-Point do you use?

Regards
Patrick

[Edmond Dantes_1]

We are using a wireless connection
ROUTER: WRT54G LINKSYS
To receive the signal we have a USB key (X-Micro WLAN 11b mini USB).

The distance between the router and the receiver is about 20 feet. There is no major obstacle. The adapter is located in a room nearby. There are two guys with something like ham radios(or something close to that)with big towers in the neighboorhood .

[Edmond Dantes_1]

I forgot to say that the two towers have rake-style antennas.

[Ernest Ford]

Perhaps you could describe better what a rake-style antenna is - antennae for use in the 2.4 GHz band are usually small and almost unnoticeable, the exception being parabolic satellite dishes.

Although it's not impossible for ham radio installations to cause interfernce with wireless networks, I would not make them my first suspect.

Where does the "connection not available" message come from - is it an application such as internet explorer or the wireless card management software? If it's from an application, then the wireless connection is only one of the possible suspects.

Finally I had a problem similar to the one you describe when I purchased a new laptop with an internal miniPCI wireless card and added it to my existing wireless network - I had intermittent dropped connections and poor performance ONLY with the new laptop, which of course made it my #1 suspect. After replacing the wireless card twice and the system board once, I contacted tech support for the access point, which just happened to be the same folks that made the wireless card in the laptop - no, they were not aware of any incompatibilities.

I replaced the access point (it was cheaper than replacing the laptop) and the problem went away - I've now owned that laptop for eleven months and it has worked with every hotspot and hotel wireless I've tried it in, it works on my home wireless - BUT - NOT with the accesspoint I originally had. I gave it to a friend and anytime I go by him with my laptop I still have trouble.

Try a Linksys wireless USB and if it gives you the same problem, call Linksys support.

[Thomas Bianco]

several things can stomp all over a Wireless connection, first among these are microwaves. you might check to see if your connection goes out every time your buddy down the hall heats his soup.

additionally, wireless phones sometimes trample all over the 2.4 range. if you have a 2.4 Ghz phone (Esp an early model) you might have to replace it.

if you're using 802.1x or WPA it might be rekeying that is dropping your connection. in XP the rekey takes about 1/50th of a second, and causes a wireless connected message to pop up.

if you're using an older router, upgrade it's firmware. the early model Linksys WRT's were known to have memory leaks that caused them to reboot spontaneously. that goes for NIC drivers as well.