# Very odd wireless network problem. Help please! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 2, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113 "2004-05-02T05:14:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113/1 "2004-05-02T05:14:44Z")
I recently bought myself a wireless router and PCI card. I installed both and they seem to work well (in fact, I’m using it right now). However, it seems that I cannot access a Yahoo! mail page. Whenever I try to access it (either from my My Yahoo! page, or going directly to [mail.yahoo.com](http://mail.yahoo.com)), the page hangs up. I find it very odd that only one site (out of the many I’ve tried) seems not to work. Anyone have any ideas? Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113/2 "2004-05-04T17:17:20Z")
_bump_ Anyone? Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![larsenmtl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d78d45/32.png) [@larsenmtl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/larsenmtl)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113/3 "2004-05-04T17:34:53Z")
Just a WAG, but I think your problem might be in the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) of your router. First, though, what type of router is it? If you look through it’s settings can you set the MTU? If so, what’s it currently set to? I’m hoping someone that knows more about this then me will come along shortly… ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113/4 "2004-05-04T17:50:47Z")
What brand(s) of router and card are you using? Also, are you able to get the page when you hook your system back up to the wired portion of your LAN? ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113/5 "2004-05-04T18:47:56Z")
The router and card are both Linksys. They are 802.11g standard. Usually, once the connection fails, I will not be able to load any page in that browser session. I haven’t tried going back to wired because that would entail putting the (wired) card back in the machine. However, before I installed the PCI card, I was using the router connected via an Ethernet cable and it worked fine. So, I suspect my problem is with the PCI card. I don’t know (offhand) what the MTU rate is. That’ll have to wait until I get home. Thanks for all your help. If you (or anyone else) has any ideas, please keep them coming. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![larsenmtl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d78d45/32.png) [@larsenmtl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/larsenmtl)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113/6 "2004-05-04T20:18:54Z")
Zev, Here’s a couple of relevent articles from the LinkSys knowledgebase: [One](http://kb.linksys.com/cgi-bin/om_isapi.dll?clientID=1428361&QuestionText=yahoo%20mail&SelectName1=&advquery=%5bs%5d%5bRank%2c%2050%3a%5bSum%3a%20yahoo%20mail%5d%5bMerge%3a%20%5bThesaurus%3a%20yahoo%20mail%5d%5d%5d&infobase=linksysrev.nfo&record=%7B4DD%7D&softpage=IKW_ENU_JDocView) [Two](http://kb.linksys.com/cgi-bin/om_isapi.dll?clientID=1428375&QuestionText=mtu&SelectName1=&advquery=%5bs%5d%5bRank%2c%2050%3a%5bSum%3a%20mtu%5d%5bMerge%3a%20%5bThesaurus%3a%20mtu%5d%5d%5d&infobase=linksysrev.nfo&record=%7B408%7D&softpage=IKW_ENU_JDocView) Of course, since it works wired, I’m really grasping at straws. Good luck, LarsenMTL ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2004, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-odd-wireless-network-problem-help-please/243113/7 "2004-05-04T21:47:53Z")
MTU refers to “maximum transmission unit”. Everything that I’ve seen so far on-line indicates that, as **larsenmtl** has mentioned, it might be a MTU problem. If you’re using PPPoE ovr DSL, your MTU should probably be set to 1492 or less. Your router should have an option to set the MTU on its configuartion web page; if you don’t have that on your Linksys, you may need to update the firmware.