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Off topic, but don't go too far overboard - after all, we are watching...heh.
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Computer Help Please

Mon Jan 17, 2005 12:50 am

My downstairs computer (wireless linksys adapter) when left on for some time begins to lose connection to my upstairs router. Like after 10 minutes of not using the internet, when I go to click Mozilla or IE to browse the web again, it can't find ANY server or connect to any webpage. Its like it times out after 10 minutes of no use. I check the signal strength and its over 80%, so thats not the problem. On my upstairs computer I run a linksys BEFW11s4 router, zonealarm, and thats it. This is the first time this has happened in 6+ months. After 5-10 minutes it can't connect to any webpages through mozilla or IE, but can connect fine to AIM.

Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:28 am

no experience with wireless nets...

Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:09 am

Just off hand, if you can get an outbound connection as you say, to AIM, and not to a webpage, it sounds like a DNS resolution problem. I would start by doing the normal stuff, ping your default gateway, ping your DNS server, and see what you get. For the time being, I would shut down everything that is non-essential, including the firewall to test for possible program conflicts. To me though, it sounds like DNS off hand.

If you can get a response back from your default gateway, then you should be able to go further and ping a DNS server in your list. If there is no response, then you have your culprit. However, if you can get a response, and are still unable to resolve a page, I would contact your provider and ask for further assistance, as there is little else that can be done if there is a network issue.

All you can do is first verify you can get to your default gateway. Then, check the default gateway on the router, as it should have a gateway going out to hit your provider. For instance, my default gateway for my machine is 192.168.1.0, but the default from my wireless router to my provider is 24.89.x.x where as x are the individual numbers assigned by my provider.

The other thing I would suggest doing is for the time being take off any encryption you have on the wifi link. Sometimes the system times out when encryption comes to pass.

Prec.

Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:23 am

If you can still connect to AIM its not a DNS issue though because AIM uses DNS to connect.

What do you do to get it working again?

What OS is on the PC that is having the problem?

Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:52 am

I just checked my AIM settings and they point to an IP, not a domain name.

Prec.

Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:52 am

When you say you connect to AIM fine... Are you recieving and sending msgs? Some Msngr programs wont detect a drop off immediately.

I bring this up cause i had a problem with my Netgear G Access point for my livingroom. ICQ would act like it was running and the XP Network signal would "say it was connected" however pages would start to load slowly or not till i did a refresh, finally they would not load at all, within 5 minutes of the DNS 404 error things responding quirky i would get a drop off from ICQ and XP. I later realized i was no longer connecting higher than 10mbps when i was establishing connection. This went on for some time before it was consistantly bad enough for me to see it was the AP (i had been thinking spam/mal or my nic in the laptop). I replaced the AP with a new Router/AP combo ($20 after rebates that i actually got the check for) and been steady ever since.

Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:37 am

I just re-checked this morning, I can connect to AIM fine, send + recieve messages without a problem, but still can't load any webpages through mozilla/IE.
To get it working again, I restart the computer and it works fine. If I try to acess the web immediatly after start up it works, but if I wait like 5 minutes, I can't and it wont load any webpages.
The OS is Win98SE First time this has happened to me.............

EDIT: 0 encryption

Mon Jan 17, 2005 12:32 pm

I have the same router as you, and the linksys USB adapter in use on another computer. The only problems weve ever had with connection problems is on our notebook, and its at about the same distance from the router as our other computer with an equivalent adapter.

Coincidentely it runs the much inferior windows ME, i've never really had problems with the computers running 2000 though.

Your OS might have a hand in the disconnects, thats just my guess though.

Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:09 pm

Oops. Should've read all of the posts before posting. While you're experiencing the issue, try the following:

c:\> ipconfig /all
(I think Win98 uses winipcfg). Make sure all the default gateway and DNS info is the same as when you boot it.

c:\> ping yahoo.com
see if you get an IP address and connectivity

c:\> tracert yahoo.com
to see if you're getting past your router.

Good Luck!!


***OLD***
Dunno if you got this fixed yet...

Could be that your ISP changed DNS servers. Yesterday, my ISP (Comcast) changed DNS servers. I could ping the old servers but couldn't get anywhere. I disconnected my wireless router and connected my PC and renewed my DHCP and found that the primary and secondary DNS servers were very different from the ones I had in my router. I reconfigured and everything is A-OK.

Note: Before reconfiguring, I could get to a couple of places (fark.com for example) but couldn't get to 99% of the places I tried via http. I find this odd and worth looking into further.... cache, cookie, hosts entry, ....?

Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:22 pm

Ok, I just called Netgear (MA111) wireless adapter, and the hardware is working fine.

I have Comcast, and this could be the same problem that you had SHWoff.

Could you go into further detail of how to renew the DHCP and see if the DNS are diffrent or not?

My main box (windows XP) works fine, and is directly connected to my linksys BEFW11S4 router. Do i need to connect my wireless computer directly to the internet to make the changes?

EDIT: I released and renewed my DHCPs, and it still doesnt work. On the config on the wireless comp, I right click on Neghborhood Network, go to my netwrok adapter, go to properties, and it has DNS disabled. Should i be enabled? It also has a WINS tab which is empty and has no info under it.

Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:55 pm

WINS shouldn't have anything under it and DNS shouldn't iether. You get them from your DCHP

Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:58 pm

Originally posted by LordShard
WINS shouldn't have anything under it and DNS shouldn't iether. You get them from your DCHP


What happened SmackShard, this post actually isn't spam!!

What in the hell are these forums coming to when SmackShard isn't posting SPAM??

:)

Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:58 pm

.

Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:59 pm

Originally posted by SkiloDog2000
.


thanks Skilo...now back to the regularly scheduled spam from the regulars.

:)

Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:03 pm

Originally posted by Tommy Boy
What happened SmackShard, this post actually isn't spam!!

What in the hell are these forums coming to when SmackShard isn't posting SPAM??

:)
That's KINGTard to you peasent!
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