Wireless Network Help

MarF

Canada156 Posts

July 23 2009 05:35 GMT

Hi all

So in my house I have 2 desktops computers, 3 laptops, an xbox360, a wii and sometimes my ipod touch all running off my wireless router. The 2 desktops are wired directly into it and everything else is wireless. The desktops, 2 of my laptops and the wii basically run fine off everything and I don't have any problems with them. The annoying thing is whenever I turn my other laptop or my xbox360 off in my basement and try to turn them back on I always have to run upstairs and reset my router for them to connect. The same thing sometimes happens with my ipod as well. It detects the network but doesn't connect to it. I have a pretty old router, like probably 3-4 years old.

Does anyone know anyway to fix this? Or should I just buy a new router? They aren't that expensive but i'm lazy

Oh and also I found that I sometimes have trouble connecting to the wireless network at my University with both the laptop and the ipod touch. So maybe it's them and not my router??? Doesn't explain my xbox360 though

If anyone could help that'd be greaaat

Thanks!!!

Chuiu

3470 Posts

July 23 2009 05:46 GMT

Imo, it would be in your best interest to upgrade to a b/g/n router. But the fix for this would be as complicated as flashing a new firmware onto your router (read: dd-wrt - this may be a little too advanced for some people and can turn your router into a oversized paper weight). Or as simple as messing around with the router settings to run on a lower frequency or something like that.

T.O.P.

Hong Kong4685 Posts

July 23 2009 06:02 GMT

In my experience, cheap routers have a lot of problems. I used to a free mail after rebate router from fry's electronics. Everyday, I would have to restart my router.

So I decided to splurge on a 100 dollar router in Costco just to see if having a better router will make all my problems go away. It was great, I don't have to restart my router anymore.

I got the D-link DIR655 router, it's one of the highest rated routers online.

GreEny K

Germany7312 Posts

July 23 2009 13:57 GMT

I would suggest getting a new router, there are good ones on http://www.newegg.com

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

July 23 2009 15:08 GMT

Well, there's many things that could be going wrong to cause the problems you have, so it's difficult to say with the level of information you've supplied. If you're lazy though, extensive debugging and testing sound like a lot more work than simply trying a new router. Old routers seem to behave in ways and end up in states that shouldn't theoretically be happening, prompting resets to return to normalcy. It's somewhat likely that even if you isolated the problem, you might have to get a new router anyway; on the other hand, the problem might not be the router after all.

At university, your devices might be (1) out of range of service, (2) having issues with network encryption or authentication, (3) confused by multiple virtual access points or service sets to connect to, (4) confused by a "hidden" network that doesn't broadcast its SSID, (5) connecting automatically to rogue access points that aren't connected to Internet that other students have set up, etc. Again, it's difficult to determine without more information.

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