Belkin wireless router connection drops for ~60 seconds every ~15 mins

Question

I have a Belkin wireless-g router, model F5D7230-4.

About every 10-15 minutes, for about 1-1.5 minutes I won't be able to browse any web sites.

During this period, I usually get replies from ping google.com. Maybe 4 out of 5 times I'll get a reply, 1 out of 5 times I don't.

I have changed the router DNS entries from get DNS server from ISP to 8.8.8.8, Google's DNS and that hasn't fixed the situation.

This happens on several computers, running Windows 7, Windows XP, Ubuntu, and a Mac, so it is definitely NOT an issue with a computer configuration.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

If there are many wireless networks in the neighborhood, your signal may be getting knocked out. This may happen only every 10 minutes or so when two signals are in precisely opposite phases. Check to see if the channel isn't overpopulated using a tool such as Vistumbler.

Choose not only the least populated channel, but the channel who also has the least number of immediate neighbors.

This might not actually be related to your problem since you don't seem to actually lose the WiFi connection. Just to be sure, check if the same behavior occurs when connected through ethernet cable or when within a few meters of the router's antenna.

Answer 2

I had multiple bad experiences with Belkin equipment. Although it was always working fine with my 802.11G nettop, my wife's 801.11N computer was losing connection on a regular basis. I was first blaming Windows, as it was fine under Linux with a cheaper internal wireless adapter. But she was using the latest Windows Vista at that time, with the latest drivers for it. The network was a protected one.

I first replaced her wireless receiver, but no luck. Still the same issue. Once I replaced the access point with a D-Link one, everything was great. Her computer was on the main floor, and the access point was upstairs.

I now stay away from Belkin products. This is my personal experience..................JF

Answer 3

Does your router have a log you can look at? That might help identify the problem. If not a log, it might have a status page that you can check for clues. You could also try pinging a few other sites and doing some nslookup commands to see if DNS is still working. Lookup sites that you haven't gone to or looked up before to eliminate the possibility that the lookup is cached locally. I've not heard of a DNS server at 8.8.8.8 . For your DNS server, try the OpenDNS servers at 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 .

Answer 4

During an outage, try pinging a IP address instead of a name (8.8.8.8 instead of google.com). This will help you sort out whether it is a DNS issue or a connectivity issue.

If connectivity to an arbitrary IP is OK, try pinging your DNS server by IP address.

If you can't ping something, then try traceroute/tracert to that IP and see where your connection ends.

If you can ping your DNS server by IP address, try nslookup, set the server to your DNS server IP, and try to resolve a name.

Answer 5

Try and isolate the problem. Is it the wireless portion or the entire router? Hookup via wire and see if the problem occurs on the wire. If not, then it is the wireless only. If the wire drops, then you may have a line issue or a hardware issue.

If the problem is isolated to wireless only, try and time when it occurs. If it is very regular, it may be some sort of interference. For example, cordless phones change frequency at set intervals and since some share the 2.4 GHz frequency range, they may selectively jam certain channels at set intervals.

Answer 6

I have a Belkin wireless g router F5D7230-4 and continuously dropped connection. I read on Belkin's support page that because the wireless channel was on AUTO mode was dropping connection. Try to change every channel until it works. I for exemple started from 13 and i stopped at 8. I hope this will work for you too. I taught it would be more complicated but switching channels works.