Hi

I have a Belkin 54g wireless router and an XP Home PC with a belkin wireless card. Everything was working marvellously and had been forever! My ISP is a BT500 connection.

I bought a laptop, a Dell Inspiron 5160 with inbuilt wireless card, to connect to my wireless network.

In trying to connect the laptop it flagged up that the card wasn't compatible with the WPA security I had set on the router. So I changed the router security to 128-WEP.

The laptop connected to the network and so did the PC.

But straight away the PC started dropping the internet connection every 9 minutes. Always 9 minutes. When it does this a "balloon" appears pointing to the systray icon and saying I should click to fix it - and if I click "repair" I get back online quite quickly.

However, I work as a teleworker so having this PC running 9 hours a day is crucial to me doing my work. I use Skype for inbound calls.

I have tried disconnecting everything, waiting 5 minutes and just turning on the router and the PC but it still disconnects after 9 minutes.

Throughout ALL of this time the laptop will always stay connected without any problems at all. (and yes I did try loading skype on the laptop but I get a HORRID "mains hum" on it when I do the test call so I can't hear my recording, so that isn't an option it seems)

Update: This morning I swapped out the belkin wireless card to see if it was the card. It is still dropping the connection. I then removed security from the router, but this has made no difference either.

Any ideas?

Regards

E