Might be a longshot, but thought I'd ask since there are a lot of IT and Tech-savvy people around here.
My wireless router drops our internet connection often... probably 4 or 5 times per day. It's an easy (but tedious) fix -- unplug the router, wait a few seconds, and plug it back in. That solves the problem every single time. I don't know all the specs, but it's a Linksys and is about 3 years old.
My question is this -- do wireless routers just fizzle out over time? I don't think it's my internet connection, and I'm not sure if there's any other fix than replacing the router. Not a big deal if I need to replace it, just want to know if there's anything else to try first.
I've had the same setup for several years with no trouble. The problems have come from nowhere in the past few weeks. I believe it's a 2.4 ghz, and one of the earlier "n" models. Distance from computer to router is never more than about 25 feet (small apartment!). Computer OS... we have both Mac and PC. I use Win7, my wife uses a Mac, not sure which version though.
When the problem happens, either the "modem" light on the router is blinking yellow, or the "internet" light. Same fix for either -- unplug and plug back in. Also, we do not have a modem in our apartment. Our building is wired so we have wall jacks, and can just hook the router directly into that.
Again, no changes at all on our end in recent history, this problem just started happening...
There are lots of variables in this equation. What does your setup look like?
1. [ DSL/Cable Modem] --- [wifi router] ---- {rest of your network}
Router is pulling a WAN IP from your cable modem via DHCP
2. [ DSL/Cable Modem] --- [wifi router] ---- {rest of your network}
Router has statically assigned WAN ip
3. [ DSL/Cable Modem] --- [wifi router] ---- {rest of your network}
Router is doing the pppoe or similar authentication and modem in bridged (passthru) mode
In this scenario the WAN side of the router would have a public IP
4. Something else.
In scenarios 1 and 3 you could be losing your DHCP lease so the router has no connection to the internet. In scenario 2, something is dropping elsewhere. With 1 and 3, the restart would have the device make another DHCP request and pull an ip again. This is why it would magically work again.
Have you gone into your router when the problem is happening to see what your WAN/Internet status is in detail? What happens if you do nothing? Does it ever come back on its own?
Thanks everybody! Ah... Channel! I remember changing this long ago, and that fixed a lot of problems. I'll have to try that again when I get back home. It's a very crowded space around here, and probably at least 20 signals my computer picks up as options. I'll let you know if that works!
Over the last week, this thing has totally gone kaput. I bought a new NetGear router and it works better than the old one ever did. Haha, plus, it took longer to get out of the box than it did to get online.
