wifi dropping

[Androps]

I have been downloading a lot of crap lately due to my hard drive being erased on accident. I have been getting really frustrated with the amount of wifi dropping I get. I will be on my computer and it seems every 15 minutes my wifi connection will drop and I have to manually disable and enable it again to get it working. It's not my internet. I have verizon DSL that works fine for any other computer. I don't know if its just the amount of crap I'm downloading or what but it's pissing me off.

Is anyone getting this same problem? Does anyone know what's wrong? Is there any way I can prevent this nuisance from happening?

I really hope I can get this fixed cause it's going to cause problems with my future downloading. Thanks!

[MikeTbob]

Make sure your wireless setting are set to only connect to your network and not any available network, check that the correct channel is being used and you might consider putting the wireless router on a different channel.Make sure you are using the correct password and other obvious stuff, it sounds to me like you have a wrong setting somewhere and that's the reason it keeps dropping. If your machine is a long distance from the router then you could be suffering from very weak signals.

[RussianWizard]

I had a similar problem. It turned out that my router was the problem and not my notebook. Try setting your router to wireless b/g speed or just g speed. This happens a lot with the newer wireless N routers.

[D-cat]

Weak signals can lock a card up on some chipsets (I have a Dell with an Orinoco card that does that). The only remedy I know is to down and restart the interface, which I actually wrote a script for because it was all too common, especially at public spots.

Is your DSL modem also a Wifi Access Point? If you are dropping and your AP is only a few feet away (less than 20), then follow MikeTbob's advice.

If you do large downloads and you can't fix the drops, you should at least use a Download manager that supports resuming inturrupted downloads so you at least don't have to restart them from scratch.
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RussianWizard: Good point. I forgot about the N problem:
How to jam your neighbor’s Wi-Fi legally | George Ou | ZDNet.com

[Androps]

I have a regular wireless G router with no N capability. It's a verizon modem/wireless router. I may have forgot to add ... I only drop when I'm downloading torrents(which is always). So it's not a weak signal(i'm only 25 feet away). The router is not an access point. It's a secure network so i'm pretty sure all configuration is good. I've download a few applications that are supposed to help with wifi connectivity and configuration. I'm pretty positive that all my settings are correct since I don't get this problem regularly... just when downloading.

Does anyone know if its disconnecting because I'm receiving or sending a 'max' amount of data or something? Since I only get this problem when I'm downloading larger amounts at one time. If I have only a few downloads going then its usually fine for a while. I dont know .. hmm. thanks for you replies all!

[wastedfluid]

I've had this happen multiple times in the past, and on Windows computers, too.

The lesson for me to learn was to quit buying cheap routers. I've figured out that you can get away with cheaper cards, but not a cheaper router. I had big problems with Trendnet, Netgear, and Belkin.

Then, I bought a Linksys, and I've yet to have a problem. My laptop runs a mini server so to speak for all of my external hard drives, and shares my torrents. It's uptime is 90+ days, and the wifi connection hasn't dropped once. It's Ubuntu 8.10, with the 2.6.27-7 kernel.

Hope you find this useful.

[MikeTbob]

I only drop when I'm downloading torrents(which is always).

I seem to remember Verizon had kicked a heap of cow pies awhile back when they started throttling P2P and torrents. I think this may be strictly related to your ISP (Verizon). Check your TOS on the contract you signed, there may be a torrent/P2P clause that you need to know about.

[D-cat]

A nearby neighbor using N could mess you up.

You could try to mess with a few settings in your router to lessen packet lengths and thresholds, it'll reduce your performance but may improve the connection. Also what are you using for a security protocol? If you live in anything near a populated place and you're using WEP, someone could be trying to run an active attack on your security (a pro can do it in under 5 minutes, an amateur might take a couple weeks) seeking weak packets. Use WPA to avoid this kind or problem.

Also you should do a wireless survey to see if you're operating on the best channel. In normal cases North America, there are only three channels that should ever be used, 1,6,and 11. Other frequencies step on each other. If you know all your neighbors and there's a lot of wireless routers, you could make a pact and engineer a 4 channel patchwork for least interference; 1,4,8,and 11. That's a little less ideal though as it only takes one new neighbor setting up a default router on CH 6 to mess up the users on 4 and 8.

Anyway, assuming the 1, 6, 11 scenario which is most common, you can ask your computer to survey the existing signals to your location and note down both their channel and their strength. If there's an unoccupied channel, use that, otherwise choose the one with the least amount of local interference. Definitely avoid any channel that indicates someone has an "N" router on it.

I hope something here can be made of some use for you. Good luck!