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Does anyone know why my WiFi connection suddenly keeps disconnecting, and will not re-connect without a boot?

I looked at other questions, but the OS is different and its not regular. Also the only answer there is not useful.

I have had this connection for about 2 weeks with no problems, but suddenly, yesterday, it happened a few times and today it has happened at least 8 times so far.

ISP: Bell Sympatico OS: XP SP3

Thanks all.

EDIT, May 8, 2010. Well, it seems that it is an ISP problem. We had a few other problems, and they found a problem on their end, and suddenly, I'm no longer having problems. I will wait one more day and if no problems, I'll accept Chris' answer, as there was so much help and info. Thanks.

Edit: well I spoke too soon. I think I have it narrowed down to some interaction with OUTLOOK 2003. I have Outlook connector installed and I believe that that is where the problem happens. Unfortunately I cannot seem to get farther than that.

EDIT: July 8.

Finally the line supplier came and looked at the wiring in our apartment. Said the jack was not properly installed in the first place. 4 days, no problem.

Yet another edit, July 24: The problem occurred again and this time was very severe. I phoned my ISP (Bell Canada) and was advised to use msconfig to disable programs that ran on startup. This seems to have helped, we'll see. I found that a few programs I needed were disabled (MSE for instance), and re-enabled them, selectively. I will keep reactivating them until I find the culprit if I can!}. Regards,

EDIT: 29 July. Well, it kept happening and then suddenly my printer started acting strangely and wouldn't work. I went through all the things your supposed to do to make the connection again but nothing was working. So, I used Microsoft Security Essentials and did a deep scan. Well, it found 5 Trojans, etc. It removed them. I re-booted about 6 or 7 times, each time trying to re-connect with the printer. Suddenly, its working, and apparently so is my WIFI connection. I have been using malwarebytes on deep scan occasionally, and got no hits. At any rate, suddenly it all seems to be working. Cross reference: http://superuser.com/questions/157813/why-has-my-hp-6l-printer-suddenly-stopped-working-i-cannot-get-it-to-start

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What have you tried, other than rebooting? I believe that there's an option to "Repair" the connection - does that work?

If you open up a command window, and try ipconfig /all what do you get back? You can try ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew to see if that fixes things up.

Bell offers a number of different wireless routers - which one do you have? Some of them have options to increase the transmitter strength, so perhaps you're getting a marginal signal? If you're in an urban area, you could try switching to a different channel - you may be getting interference from neighbors.

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@chris - I have run "Repair". It worked a couple of times yesterday, but today, no go. My signal shows as excellent - there has been no change in positioning which would explain this phenomenon. ipconfig/all returns info that I don't understand and am not sure it's appropriate to share. I will try release/renew. Thanks so much. regards. – Xavierjazz Apr 20 '10 at 1:48
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The ipconfig information shows your ip address, which will probably something like 192.169.1.xxx - different routers may have 0, or 1, or 2 in there. Check it occasionally while it's working, and then compare what you get when you're having problems. Are there any ipod or ipad users in your house, or other wireless users? Do you have security enabled? – chris Apr 20 '10 at 2:13
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OK, assuming that your computer is 192.168.1.xxx, next time it freezes see if you can ping the router - open up a cmd window, and type "ping 192.168.1.0" - that will at least let you know if the wireless is working or, if it's something at the ISP end. – chris Apr 21 '10 at 11:38
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if you can ping your router, next step is to ping something on the internet - ping www.google.com is always a good one to try. You could also run nslookup www.google.com to see if perhaps it's your name servers that are not responding. – chris Apr 22 '10 at 11:45
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No, I was referring to the drivers, but if you have an IBM, I'd look at that being the problem. See also trivialproof.blogspot.com/2006/06/… - apparently you're not alone. – chris Apr 28 '10 at 18:33
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