Linksys Wireless-N ADSL2 WAG160N losing connection

Question

It seems that recently I have to turn off and then turn on my router every time I want to connect my laptop(s) to the internet.

This is what's happens:

1. When I want to connect to the internet on my laptop, the network icon in the system tray states that I am connected to the wireless network but there's no "internet connectivity"
2. I turn off the router and turn it back on and then I can connect to the internet.

I am sure there is something that needs to be done. Can you guys point me to the right direction?

Answer 1

I assume there are many of wireless networks round your home. The thing is that you have to use different channel to avoid collisions. To me, collisions occur when there is high peak of Internet usage round my apartments and I have lost connectivity errors like Limited or No Connectivity and sometimes it's connected but no Internet connection, ie. nslookup says 'DNS timed out for google.com'.

For this case, no matter how many times you turn off and turn back on your router, it doesn't help. I googled and found this tip (use different channels) in about.com. The product documentation states collisions only with electronic devices like TV. I never thought of wireless networks can collide one another.

Choose the channels that are not default one (choose not 1,6,11 but 3,7,8,10,12,13). Higher is safe because I learn that lower ones are used by devices like TV.

At first, I thought that it was my computer so I booted with another OS - still the same. [you must ensure you try to do like me] So, then I thought it might be my wireless router hang. Turned it off and it on again and again. It didn't help. Now I've solved it myself.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

I used to have this router and had troubles with it dropping wireless connections frequently. Some things that will improve your situation:

Check if there are firmware updates available and install them if so.

As jack said, set your wireless channel to one that isn't used much. He didn't mention how to choose what this is though. Best way is to use NetStumbler which will show you what channels are used by other networks, and the signal-to-noise on each channel.

It's also likely that you don;t need to reset your router to fix the described state above - does selecting 'Repair Connection' fix things?

Finally, it may be worth setting up and Alternate Configuration in TCP/IP properties of your wifi card. This is a fallback IP/gateway/DNS in case DHCP failes, whcich is one of the possible causes of the 'limited connectivity' error