XP Home, Belkin 54g Wireless Router - Disconnecting

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

Hi and welcome to D-A-L


This may sound a bit senseless as you've got wireless, but do you have the same problem if using cables?

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Hi
I haven't tried it wired as the reason I run wireless is the router is difficult to access. It is at the back of my "junk room" measuring 5'x6' and I'd need to disconnect the whole PC to move it in there to try.
So, let's assume that I did and it was:
1) OK
2) Still dropping

what would each of these indicate?

If you reply, then knowing it might be leading somewhere, I can take the hour to dismantle my PC and move it to see at some random hour in the night when I don't need it. But right now I have to get 300 letters printed and posted before I can do that.

Thanks for your suggestion.

in the "junk room" has the router got lots of space around it for cooling?
is there anything in there that could be messing the signal up?

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Hi

There is plenty of air circulation in the room. High ceilings and it is on an open wooden slatted shelf at the top with nothing on the shelf and nothing on the shelf below. All the "junk" is at ground level and the ceilings are nearly 10 feet high.

Also: the laptop I am using full time all day long here and the laptop is maintaining connectivity

New thought: I am thinking and now testing, that the problem is that the WEP network key is not being remembered although until I have tested this a few times it is hard to tell.

When I go into Properties of the card the network key is empty. Alternatively the ****** markers are much shorter than the actual WEP network key. Although I am aware that maybe what I can see (as a human) isn't what the system sees - so perhaps I might be onto a red herring ... or maybe not.
It is re-connecting mostly, which is what makes me think I might be up the wrong track on this one.

Things I believe are true:
Rebooting the PC will always make it connect
Typing in the network key will always make it connect
When it disconnects if I quickly get it to reconnect it will do so but if I leave it a couple/few hours it won't

Any thoughts on this?

Hi there,

Have you tried doing a factory reset on the router? Theres normally a hole for a pin at the back of the router to do this. After doing this reset all the settings in the router to normal and see if it works..

Also try upgrading the firmware and/or driver of the router and of your wireless network card (can be found on the manufacturers website).

Do you live near high voltage electrical wires or next to a train line? This could also be disrupting the signal... (train every 9 mins?... )

Let us know how you get along

Regards
Mathias

thanks all. I appear to have fixed it.

what I did was:
Start, Control Panel, Network Connections, right click on the "wireless network connection" in the list, properties, wireless networks tab, click on the wireless network under the "preferred networks" area, click Remove.

Click Add - ALL it asked for was the SSID of the network and I had to put in the network key. I didn't touch any of the other tabs. In particular, previously I noticed that on the "authentication" tab the top item "IEEE 802.1x" had been ticked; it now wasn't and I left it unticked.

I hadn't tried to delete the network before as I was "scared it would ask me for things I didn't know or ask me to make a decision between two things I didn't understand or ask me for a CD I had to find". But it didn't do any of that!

That was it. It connected and now stays connected.

Thanks for your help guys!!

I hope somebody else will stumble across this thread and be helped by your suggestions

Thanks for the thanks

Glad you're all sorted

This thread has been Resolved and Closed.

If you started this thread and the problem returns, please P.M. me and I'll reopen the thread.

If you have a different problem, please start a new thread.

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