Wireless issues

So unfortunately our wireless has been experiencing some major issues which is why i have not been able to be on forums or play any CSS for some time.

Our wireless likes to disconnect at random intervals and reset itself. Also even though I am connected (I have torrents that continue to download) I can not obtain a webpage of any sort. The IP likes to reconfig itself and I have to continually release my IP to re-obtain the new one. Also even though I have full connectivity, I have a real bad bandwidth, there are only 2 other devices on the wireless and I'm the only one who does any major downloading.

Any help/tips/advice would be much appreciated.

 

Torrents continuing to download doesn't necessarily mean they aren't temporarily stalled. Wireless networks (the kind that do not need a leased and licensed, FCC (or your country's equivilent) approved frequency set assigned) operate either at 2.4 or 5GHz ranges. Unfortunately, ALL MATTER OF COMMON PUBLIC USE DEVICES THAT USE WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY ALSO USE THESE SAME FREQUENCY RANGES. So... do you have any cordless phones in the house? Do you have yourself or family members using them when you seem to have mysterious wireless network issues? If so, the remedies are to:

• Get rid of the cordless phone(s).
• Switch to using cordless phones which use the frequencies that your home wireless does not use (2.4 or 5GHz).
• Set your wireless access point (or integrated services router with built in access point) to only use the 2.4 or 5GHz range opposite of what your phones use.

Another source of issues can be microwave ovens. I worked in I.T. at a medical center where microwave ovens that staff were using throughout various parts of the facility were causing wireless network communication issues. The ovens were replaced with models which leaked less EMI or not allowed at all in some cases.
Another issue can be a situation where your networking gear is overheating a bit due to poor ventilation, equipment stacking, excessive dust buildup, etc.
There certainly are all kinds of other possabilities that can cause the symtoms you see, and many are not wireless specific/related. Check the frequencies of any cordless phones and try eliminating conflicts. Beyond that, just try to eliminate different things until you narrow it down more and  post back here. For example, try using a wired connection for a while if you can and see if the problem stays away or not. You get the idea.

 

I never use wireless, even though my modem has it.

 

Well piggy that is quite the amount of information.

Unfortunately the only cordless phones we have are our cellphones, plus  we don't have a microwave oven...soooooooo unfortunately yeah.

I believe the problem is that we are in quite a old home and the walls are probably interfering with the signal..but even then its not really the signal but the router itself, because even if directly connected it'll disconnect.

 

Okay, so now we are at least moving in a direction. The problem persists even if using a wired connection. This rules out wireless issues as a cause. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the remaining possibilities draw from a pretty large pool of potential candidates. Not to worry though, it can be figured out. Once it is figured out, it can be determined if it can be dealt with or not. In the case of old wiring that you are not allowed to change or bypass (such as might be the case with cable company wiring in an apartment complex), there is not a lot you can do. Perhaps see if you can get DSL delivered via the phone companies wiring in case it will give you better service. But, if the issue is something you can change, then it is just a matter of getting it figured out.

Do you notice any kind of pattern to the problem? So far it sounds like you aren't able to discern any patterns. If you do know of anything that seems to coincide with the problem, please mention it even if it seems unlikely as a cause.

There are some steps I would like you to try to help figure this out if you are up for it. Find out what local, private IP addresses your hosts and equipment use (hosts is just a fancy name for computers). You probably have dynamic addressing in use on most or even all of your equipment. That means using DHCP to get assigned anaddress from a DHCP server (usually your integrated services router, or in common lingo today, simply router). What this means is that an address something has today, doesn't mean it will have the same address at another time. Typically, the addresses issued by DHCP do persist for a bit but be aware they can change from time to time. You can check what IP address a Windows computer has by running CMD and then typing in: ipconfig | more
This will show you what you need. Sending it to more makes it not immediately scroll off your screen. Anyway, be sure to look at the info for the correct network adapter in case there are several listed (like VMware adapters, VPN software adapters etc.). It will probably have a class C private address starting with 192.168.x.x

I bring this up because you need to be aware of that for the following steps. When you have trouble do these commands from you game PC (after you run the CMD program):

• ping (ip address of another computer running on your home network)
• ping (ip address of your router, called gateway when you did the ipconfig command)
• ping www.grc.com
• tracert www.grc.com

Oh yeah, to save the output to a log file instead of the screen, put this on the end of any command you wish:

>>%homedrive%%homepath%\test.log

If you're willing to look at it, I'm willing to try and help.

Piggy

 

I think this is more of the fact that our wireless provider has a dynamic IP and my laptop isn't auto refreshing it..either way I'm not staying at my friends much longer.

 

Okay then in that case, a quick way to get your laptop to reaquire the appropriate information from the DHCP server is to do the following:
Open a command prompt by running CMD
Enter the command: ipconfig /release
Enter the command: ipconfig /renew
Close the command prompt if or whenever you feel like it.
There are other (GUI) ways, but they very according to which OS you run and to some extent how configured. The command line way always works to re-acquire.