Wireless internet

My wireless internet will stay perfectly fine for days at a time, until the moment I try to download streaming video or scroll through Google Maps (two things which require constant packet sending), at which point it’ll hiccup, and not work for between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. I can sit and watch Google Maps while the images load, the internet will freeze, it will come back a minute later and then immediately finish loading, and then the instant I zoom in it’ll die again.

Why does it do this, and how can I fix this?

Same thing happens to me but only when I upload to Google Web Albums. If I upload more than a handful of pic then I sometimes lock up the router. The computer that most often does this is actually wired into the router, but the wireless connection in the other part of the house (from the same router) is also locked up then.
I go into the router settings and reset the router, that always works. Or you could power down and back up to accomplish the same thing.

Let’s see if we have the same hardware/stuff;
Gateway PC running MCE 2005
Router = Belkin 54G (not sure the exact model number)
Time Warner/RoadRunner/Cable modem

Are you sure you actually loose the connection? How do you verify that the connection went down and that it isn’t a memory/computer issue?

What kind of wireless network interface does the computer use? A USB stick? An installed PCI card? Built in to a laptop?

The wireless receiver is built into a laptop. But it’ll drop the connection on the wired computers too.

‘A local area network cable has been unplugged’ on those computers, and my laptop flashes up ‘Wireless internet has been disconnected.’

So yes, I’m sure that’s what it is.

My wireless router is a D-Link WBR-2310.

Has it always done this? If not, I’d say it sounds like the router might be on the way out. If it’s always done it, or is fairly new anyway, an upgrade of the router firmware might be in order.

Having said that, routers can be funny things - I’ve come across several case where the LAN side of them would drop temporarily because the internet connection had gone down, even when the modem was external to the router.

Seems then that the only common link is Google, so far.
I’m going to try to dig up some dirt on Google. I’ll use Yahoo to search the internet for these problems though. :smiley:

I just upgraded the firmware. The problem still occurs, though.

And it seems to occur at the exact point I find something interesting. “Ooh. I didn’t know Las Vegas was that close to Arizona. zoom aww, shit.”

It might be the zooming, it seems fine on the side-scrolling. I don’t know if side-scrolling just requires it to load less images at once, whereas zooming causes a full refresh.

If it’s happening at times of peak throughput, it might be something to do with the MTU setting - the size of the largest packet your system can handle - I say ‘might’ because I wouldn’t expect it to manifest in what appears to be an actual loss of network connection, and I’d expect it to cause problems in other scenarios too, but still worth a try. Your computer’s network interface and your router should have MTU settings.
Details on MTU settings (in the context of netgear routers, but the information is pretty universal) here:
http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/N100603.asp