Intermittent Wireless Problems

Question

I have an Inspiron 1150 and a Netgear DG834G wireless router. The router is in one room and I generally work in an adjacent room a few metres away. Most of the time everything works fine but, occasionally, the wireless signal strength will drop a little, sometimes drop a lot, and sometimes drop away altogether. If I take the laptop back into the same room as the router then a few moments later the link strength will be restored and all will be fine - this always works. I have had this intermittent problem since I set up the router about 18 months ago.   I can't think of anything obvious that coincides with the signal dropping - for example it's not using the cordless phone, or turning on the dishwasher. It seems to be unpredictable.   I have upgraded the router firmware, and am thinking about upgrading the network adaptor.   Any ideas?

VBdotNet · Answer

If you're in an apartment or your neighbors are very close to you then someone living near you with a 2.4GHz cordless phone could be affecting your wireless. Check out the bottom of this page for some common solutions to dropped wireless connections.

Gid99 · Answer

I doubt whether this is the problem but I'll give it a try. I am currently on channel 1 (the default), should I just switch to channel 2, or does it make sense to go for a more distant channel (say 10). Do i have to change some configuration on the laptop as well? Or will it all just work?

Thanks for the advice.

G

NemesisDB · Answer

for the sake of any neighbors, try to keep it on chan 1, 6, or 11 (as that allows the greatest combination of unique channels). what wireless card do you have?

Gid99 · Answer

According to Device Manager I have a Dell TrueMobile 1400 Dual Band WLAN Mini-PCI Card. I assume that if I switch the router to channel 11 then the laptop will just see this automatically without the need for me to reconfigure?   G

NemesisDB · Answer

that's correct ... also, you might hover your mouse over Product Support above and click downloads -- from there, find the latest drivers for your card

Gid99 · Answer

Thanks very much. I think there is a later version of the device driver available on the Dell site but it is marked as 'for use in the US only'. I am in the UK - does that matter?

NemesisDB · Answer

I think the UK may use slightly different channels, so I wouldn't use that driver ...   does the UK dell site have a downloads section?

Gid99 · Answer

The dell.co.uk site is redirected to the euro.dell.com site which has all the downloads on it and there is only one download for my card (there is no choice).   The description of the download includes the words ' Download this driver only if you reside in the United States.'   http://support.euro.dell.com/uk/en/filelib/index.aspx?sid=INS_PNT_P4_1150&cat=5&os=WW1&dev=3355&devlib=5

NemesisDB · Answer

I'd keep the one you have then ...  I think the US uses different channels than europe so I wouldn't want to switch it

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Intermittent Wireless Problems

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