Wireless Router random drop outs?

[1150A]

Hi,
I've got a secured wireless connection at home. 2 Mac laptops connect to it, and 1 pc laptop. I've tried a linksys, dlink router, and am currently using a netgear router. What I've noticed is.. when leaving my computer on when I'm not at home, I'll come home, and I'll be disconnected from the network. Then, I'll search for it, but it wont even show up. I have to physically reset the router and connect.

This has happened with all my routers and I changed service once. Sometimes it happens even when I'm using the computer and it randomly drops.

Anyone have this problem?

What I've noticed in the past two days were when I leave a bittorrent file downloading at night, I'll wake up, and it will be disconnected.

Any ideas?

[netants]

1. have you checked the "KEEP ALIVE" things in the router settings?
2. check the wires/cables for any possibility of loose connection

[mwadley]

This is a common problem of cheap wireless routers. I have went through this problem as well. I had a D-Link WBR-2310 that would constantly restart itself and freeze. The best wireless router I can think of right now is the Linksys WRT54GL. The L stands for Linux as you can flash the firmware to something based on Linux. Doing this transforms this ~$60 router into a fully featured ~$300 router. A common firmware that people use is DD-WRT,but there are others which are all stable and offer a wide variety of features. I bought this router with the intention of flashing the firmware as soon as I got it,but it has been stable on the stock firmware. Your other option is to buy a Cisco wireless router, but ill wish you good luck with those because they are a little too advance for the average person to configure and they start at about $300.

[freehood4all]

Good advice mwadley, I also have a Linksys WRT54GL and am running the latest DD-WRT firmware and I have never had such a stable router. It's amazing! hardware is as only good as the software it runs. I have flashed many routers to DD-WRT since the first time. You can even do it with the cheapo Linksys WRT54G's with a little more difficulty tho. Check out their site here. (http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/index.php)

[Krell]

Alternative firmware such as the DD-WRT allows one to adjust the output power, which is jacked down by default. This is pertinent because if the security key renewal time passes and you dont have connectivity to renew, then you are blocked, thus the catch 22.

I'm running Firmware Version : v2.00.5, HyperWRT + thibor15b and Ive been quite happy with it.


.

[Theinfamousone]

I had a friend in computer science at UCSF that had a Netgear router, he got so frustrated with it not working that he put a few hammer swings through it and shipped it back to Netgear. So I bought a D-link, that too would only work about half the time, so after talking to their technical support for a few hours using my cell phone minutes, they finally decided the thing was wacked out (it was practically new) so they sent me a new one for free. The next one I got didn't work any better, brand new out of the box. So I decide I am going to buy a Linksys, that one works a LITTLE better, but still, half the time does not connect to the internet, it just does local only connection. So I am really amazed that after a decent amount of years, there is still no good solution. I am now using my new room mates router, I don't know what kind it is, because he has it somewhere in his bedroom, but of course it drops out all the time with my new HP Pavillion 2500 I have and my Macbook Pro. The Macbook Pro works slightly better though. Half the time I'll start up my HP with Vista installed and it will only show one network, I live in student housing and there are about 30 within range. All are locked of course (retards, anyone thought of just sharing?) so we all have to fork out our own do for the internet.