wireless connectivity

[hoofhearted4]

first off, be prepared for a wall of text!!

 

ill start from the beginning and give as much detail as i can so i can get the best responses possible. i got my first router about 3 years ago, when i got my first laptop. this is it:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122016

 

in my old house, the router was downstairs on one side of the house, my room was upstairs on the opposite side of the house, not a big house, but i was as far away from it as i could get. i would lose connection randomly. i would have to go unplug my router and restart my computer. then i got a new laptop, and this happened less, but still happened. now im in a new house. the router is upstairs, im downstairs, but almost directly under it. so im a lot closer this time around. the connectivity is better but not great. every now and then when i boot my laptop from sleep mode ill have a little yellow symbol (looks like a mini sun) on my bars. if this happens i need to shut my laptop down unplug my router, plug it back in and reboot my laptop, then ill have connection. if i just try to connect it via the control panel, it says it cant. if i just unplug/plug my router in without turning my laptop off, it wont fix it, and if i just reboot my laptop without unplugging my router it wont fix it......recently ive just been having bad connection period. the best example of this is last night, i was gunna post this thread last night, but i couldnt connect. well i could but i couldnt. i had 5 bars (almost always have 4 or 5) could get on facebook (my home page) and had no trouble clicking on links and stuff, but i couldnt get on the nexus forums...got onto g4tv.com, but couldnt connect to google. used ping in the cmd prompt, and i got 100% responses from g4tv and facebook but 0% from nexus and google....went onto youtube, got on it fine, but none of the videos would load. so for some reason i could get onto some websites but not others....recently ive been timing out on a lot of sites (like i was last night)....when i first boot my laptop after everything loads, sometimes it takes a while for my web broswer to load, i just close it out and try again, its a sometimes fix.....also last night i couldnt connect to Champions Online and i couldnt update the Firefox broswer cause it couldnt connect. and a lot of times i just feel like loading things on the internet take a little longer then they should. its not exactly slow, my parents desktop is slower, but idk, i just feel like it should load faster....also last night, rebooting my laptop and unplugging my router didnt solve anything, still had the same connection loss to the same sites. im back on today because of chance, not because i solved anything :P

 

so my questions are. what cause this shitty, randomy, but not complete loss of connection. is it just because im on a laptop and they dont have great wireless connection? is it the router itself? is it just a cheap crappy router? if an upgrade in router would help solve my issues, what should i look for. what are some examples?...also is there anything i can do on my computer to help connectivity?

 

to try and eliminate any possible causes, and im not sure if this effects anything or not, but my laptop is completely defragmented, there are no viruses (i use 3 different scans so im sure its clean) i use CCleaner to clean out all the junk on my PC, and ive been the the Netgear webpage recently and updated its software and patch files and whatnot, dont know what they do, but ya i did that.

 

im just curious about all this, one cause its a pain in the ass, but also cause whenever i end up building my PC, id like to not have shotty connection....also this is the wireless adapter i plan on getting for my PC. if you think i should get a different one or better one lmk, or if you think im fine then cool:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320071

 

also if you think the problem lies solely in my ISP, then there is nothing i can do about it. my parents pay for cable and internet so i have no control over that, but for reference we have Time Warner Cable/Road Runner.

 

thanks guys, hope you made it through my wall of texts.

Edited August 17, 2011 by hoofhearted4

[bben46]

if your router has an external antenna, you may need to turn it horizontal (or one of them if you have more than one antenna) The signal from that type antenna is more like a doughnut in shape so the signal up and down will be much weaker than the 360 degrees around it at the same height. By turning the antenna horizontal, the doughnut will be turned to send most of the signal up and down.

 

A reflector to force the signal to be more directional can help also. Here is a couple of FREE ones

http://www.instructa...ster-DIY-style/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Wi-Fi-Extender/

[hoofhearted4]

alright ill try putting it horizontal. thanks!

 

anyone else have an ideas? :)

[Illiad86]

ouch Time Warner lol...tell your folks to switch services :P I hate them...lol so much.

 

When my parents had them when I was still living there, they were notorious for having the worst wireless. I had a laptop at the time as well. The router was in the same room as me and it would randomly just cut off. Work for 10 minutes, bomb, reset router...and repeat....sigh. The router doesn't happen to be one of those black wireless Motorola cable routers? They've been using those stupid things for years...

 

I can't give you much of a suggestion other than just check the antenna like bben said. Time Warner will NOT let you buy an aftermarket cable router. You can buy a wireless router to hook up to it for more connections...but they won't let you buy one with the actual cable hook-up, ya know what I mean? Pretty stupid if you ask me...but they want it to be their parts because that's all the know how to fix lol...

Edited August 17, 2011 by Illiad86

[bben46]

My cable company also doesn't allow third party cable modems. However when I moved here I called for a hookup and was told the wait was 6 to 8 weeks because they were out of cable modems. I went to Best Buy :rolleyes: and bought one. They allowed me to hook it up temporarily and activated my account - that was 6 years and 2 personally owned cable modems ago. :tongue:

 

My cable/Telco is a privately owned local and the service is much more personal than the big cable companies.

[Illiad86]

Hahah sweet :D Only problem with TWC is your crap still breaks regardless of the router...so they'll be over there fixing your cable box and see you are using a 3rd party router and threaten to not offer you internet anymore. This is coming from personal experience lol...I bought a 3rd party wireless network card (old laptop, didn't have built in) and they yelled at me for it :rolleyes: saying "blah blah this isn't our parts, blah blah if you don't use our parts we will disconnect you blah blah herp a derp" :rolleyes:

 

Mine's TDS Metrocom...they are a pretty big company but much smaller than AT&T and TWC. They have DSL over cable though. I love it, I have 2MB/s upload and 4MB/s download...most companies only offer 768k upload. They are a great company if your parents ever consider switching hoof :) They have the most fantastic customer service...but really you never have to call them. Only gripe is you are required to have a landline for the DSL...but the phone is super cheap depending on what package you get.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Illiad86

[hoofhearted4]

nope switching isnt an option. they have no issues with TWC so its not even a possible thought to even be considered as a solution lol.

 

whenever i move out on my own, then we will see, but that could be a couple years, i wont be on my own till after college.

 

and i did move the antenna horizontal so we will see. no issues yet, but thats the thing. its random anyways so there is no way to really tell if i fixed the issue unless it stops completely.

 

also my router is the one i listed. its netgear not motorola....the modem on the other hand, idk, its whatever they gave us, had the same ones for years.

[LHammonds]

Let's see. You live in town...possibly next to several neighbors? Can you tell if there is any wireless activity when your laptop is not on? Is there a possibility your neighbors are hooking up to your wireless and stealing your bandwidth?

 

If there is activity when there shouldn't be any, then enable WEP encryption. If you already have WEP encryption, change the key. There are various ways people can hack into your wireless connection even if you have encryption enabled. If you determine that there are leechers and enabling WEP or changing the key does not deter them, go one step further and configure your wireless access to only accept pre-defined MAC addresses...namely the MAC address of your laptop.

 

If you find people are leeching your wireless and you are curious as to what they are doing, download a packet capture and analysis utility called WireShark. Let it capture packets for several minutes when you know they are soaking up your bandwidth. Then take a look at what they were doing, where they were going, etc. :devil:

[hoofhearted4]

lol that actually sounds fun, but i highly doubt my neighbors are hacking my wireless. for one, i doubt any of them are close enough to read it, and if they are then there are three ppl. one on either side of me and one across the street. across the street i have an old lady. on my left i have a stupid redneck (its not a an exaggeration, he is extremely dumb) and on the other i have a normal family whom i guess could hack it but im sure they have their own wireless....that leaves the redneck.

 

lol my wireless is passworded so i think im set and no one is stealing anything, no paranoia here :P

[bben46]

Even dumb rednecks, 'normal' families and old ladies have friends or relatives that can (and will) set them up to leech on someone elses wireless. :whistling:

And yes, a standard password protected setup will prevent 98% of leechers from stealing your bandwidth. :thumbsup: