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I have a PC with (secured) wireless Internet configured. This works fine, for a while.

Then suddenly, halfway through the evening, the connection is lost and is back again in a second or so. Windows then tries to recover by acquiring a new IP address. But before this is resolved, 15 seconds later, the connection is dropped again. This process repeats itself indefinitely. Windows is forever trying to acquire an IP address, and the connection drops and recovers every 15 seconds.

Strangely enough, when I try my netbook at the same time, it has no problems with connectivity. But it doesn't seem PC-related, because I have exactly the same problem on a third computer. It just seems that one computer is more sensitive to the problem than others.

Also, when I check my PC the next morning, everything works fine again.

Note: I changed the default channel (7) in the wireless modem to 11 and to 3, but changing the channel didn't improve things in any way.

What else could be the problem?

PS: I have a Sitecom Wireless Network PCI Adapter MiMoXR WL-151 And a ZyXEL modem. And Windows XP.

(Same on both computers that are giving problems)

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Please specify operating system and hardware (wireless card & driver) of the systems you tested it with. – brandstaetter Oct 23 '09 at 11:20
Are you in an airplane flying loops above your house when this happens? – Michael Haren Oct 23 '09 at 16:52

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

If both computers that drop it have the same network card, that could be your culprit. Have you tried updating the drivers?

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Thanks, I will try and see if there are newer drivers. – Anonymous Oct 23 '09 at 11:42
up vote 1 down vote

One other possible culprit - do you have the SSID on the wireless set to broadcast? I had one computer on my network that ALWAYS had problems with my wireless. The problem was that I was NOT broadcasting the SSID (a lame attempt at helping to keep my network secure (with other items, of course)). Once I switched the broadcast back on, poof! Problem went away.

The main point was, it did NOT affect every computer in the same way. Just the one had problems with it - others (some running the same OS, virtually the same hardware) did not have any problems.

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up vote 0 down vote

Just a thought (and maybe more of a hack than a fix), have you tried setting static IPs on the machines that keep dropping the connections?

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No, but thanks for the suggestion. I will try that. – Anonymous Oct 23 '09 at 11:41

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