Wireless Connection Frequently Failing

New Member
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
1,094
Best answers
0
Okay, this has happened before. At at one point, for a nice stretch of time, it stopped happening. But now it's back with a vengeance.

Basically, at random, or under heavy loads, my wireless connection effectively shuts down. The router is fine, modem's working for everyone else who shares the connection, and my wireless adapter is the best in the house, AND is fully updated as far as drivers are concerned.

Now, being a clientside issue, I'm rather lost.

It's normally (with exceptions) a problem that is solved by the "repair" function of my wireless status icon, but at times, I have to go about it the old fashioned way and restart the DSL modem and the router and THEN use repair. Of course, by then the modem will be wanting its access code, so I have to open the good ol' 192.168.0.1 and feed it the infernal code so it will let me connect again.

I notice this doesn't happen so much anymore during typical browsing, though slowdowns are problematic and common, especially during youtube browsing. Sometimes it's just IE7 needing a restart (how a net browser climbs to six digits of processing resource in the task manager, I have no idea) other times it's the connection itself.

Mostly though, the typical pattern is on using an online game, like Team Fortress 2.

Even on servers with excellent latency, I'll find myself quickly going from reasonable ping to pings of 500 and 700 until the connection fizzles out and dies entirely. Sometimes I can repair it before I get booted from a server, but not always.

And while on a GOOD day my ping remains in the 30-70 range and the connection gives me no grief, more often this sort of nonsense barrs my way. And I really have no idea what it could be anymore. My antivirus is always on, always updated, scans weekly and takes out the adware trash.

I'm just at a loss as to what to do anymore. Frankly I'm tired of it, and if anyone here wiser than myself has the faintest inkling of a solution, I'd be delighted to hear it.
 
New Member
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
1,094
Best answers
0
So only your wireless loses connectivity? Not the computers that are connected by ethernet cable?
We all run off the same wireless network. My machine is the only one that seems to have these problems. The others connect fine without ethernet connections.

I probably COULD hook my Ethernet cable to the router, but I have no idea if that would interfere with the others' wireless links. And while that might do good for short term, I'd rather find a long term solution so this becomes a non-issue.
 
New Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2004
Messages
652
Best answers
0
Location
On the Annihilatrix.
Yeah... try hooking it up with the ethernet cable, and then put some heavy load on the router.

If it still cuts out, than the laptop is the culprit. We'll figure it out from there.
 
New Member
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
1,094
Best answers
0
@Walmart: Eh? My PC is a desktop...not a laptop...Yeah, I'll try that out after this post.

@Sicron: My OS is XP, Media Center Edition. Wouldn't touch Vista with a 2 gigabyte RAM stick. NVidia card? Hell yes. 7950GT. Though the card recently has been giving me "insufficient power" readings, so I'm upgrading to a nice 600 watt PSU just in case, and soon afterward upgrading to the 8800gt, so I cover both bases there. If it's still giving me grief, I can only deduce it's the motherboard, which I won't be happy about...
 
New Member
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
Mar 29, 2003
Messages
4,765
Best answers
0
Location
The Netherlands
Hmmm weird, since I have had a somewhat similair problem. I would be playing a game, and suddenly my graphics card would underclock itself (seems PowerMizer is somewhat bugged on my laptop) but at the same time, it would also cut off my Wireless connection and half my Vista wouldn't work anymore. I had to do a hard reboot to get everything to work again. Problem is fixed now though, installed some Vista updates and latest beta drivers and the problems stopped from occuring. That and I also removed anything that makes PowerMizer work in the registry, so it won't kick in anymore unless I am on a battery.

Then again, I have a laptop with Vista and a 8600m GT.

On a side note, I have 2GB of RAM and Vista works like a charm. It almost never uses all of the RAM. In Vista it will use 900-ish MB at most and the most I have encountered in a game so far is that it uses roughly 1600MB. That and there might be a chance that my graphics card eats some of my RAM. Which means when needed, you have even more RAM at your disposal, since shared memory has a low priority as far as I know.
 
Last edited:
New Member
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
1,094
Best answers
0
@Sicron: Hmm...Well, I've stopped Windows from updating to Service Pack 3, if that means anything. I tried that once, and it set my computer into a reboot loop. I had to safe mode and then system restore to Service Pack 2 to fix it.

Then again, I run a computer that uses HP software, and it eventually downloaded an HP update that said it "solved reboot loop problem with Service Pack 3 update". So it might work now if I did, but I don't like risk taking ith Windows updates, and frankly the local Geek Squad precint said they did away with SP3 as well since it generated "a whole host of problems".

Should I?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EDIT

Well, the Internet likely works fine with the Ethernet cable. Didn't seem to have sign of connection problems. But there's no way I could know my ping, since Team Fortress 2 wouldn't get past it's memory lag on lowest settings so I could hit the tab button. All the while I was running the game in a window for simplicity, and as soon as I joined a server, got spammed by about a thousand dll errors from one of the NVidia processes because the video card had lowered it's settings so much that the 512 Megabyte monster probably couldn't handle Battlefield 1942. So now, I wait for my PSU to show up so I can BEGIN to do something to fix my machine.
 
Last edited:
New Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2004
Messages
652
Best answers
0
Location
On the Annihilatrix.
@Walmart: Eh? My PC is a desktop...not a laptop...Yeah, I'll try that out after this post.
Hah.. sorry, i skimmed through your post, i was in a hurry at the time.

But anyways, you have XP and it's doing this? I'm really at a loss J-Dude. The only thing i can think of is to maybe update your drivers for your Mobo and your graphics card or perhaps try a different card and see if it still causes problems.

And just be on the safe side and test your Ram. I know it sounds stupid, but maybe for some reason your ram bugs out under load of TF2 and likes to kick the connectivity of your internet.
 
New Member
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
1,094
Best answers
0
What? No, sorry, I don't buy ATI, because frankly their stuff is crap.

And the 8800gt is top of the line, and not "outdated". And the fact you mistook AMD for ATI puts your judgement seriously into question.

NVidia all the way.
 
Active Member
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
Nov 6, 2005
Messages
1,037
Best answers
0
What? No, sorry, I don't buy ATI, because frankly their stuff is crap.

And the 8800gt is top of the line, and not "outdated". And the fact you mistook AMD for ATI puts your judgement seriously into question.

NVidia all the way.
Well technically, AMD is ATI, they kept the brand name ATI just to not piss off (?) ATI fans.
And the HD4870>9800 IIRC. Check Deco's graphics thread for a recent run down of cards. 8800 is definately not top of the line anymore.
(though I have to admit, I have a 9800 myself, but it's an ATI xD)
 
Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2002
Messages
807
Best answers
0
ATI 4850 and 4870 cards blow the 8000 series out of the water, and is comparable to the 9000 series. Not to mention, it's much more cheaper than the 8000 series. Do some research before making assumptions.
 
Former Forcepit Member :(
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
Aug 21, 2006
Messages
1,717
Best answers
0
Location
korriban
what brand of router are you using coz my netgear one gives me the same problems for my laptop and desktop unless i use the ethernet cable
 
New Member
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
1,094
Best answers
0
I've done my research, thank you. And the 9000 series consists of either the 9600, which is reportedly inferior to the 8800gt, or there are the other monstrous cards that are outside my current price range, as well as the 800mb and full gigabyte fiends that would run my $500, and likely wouldn't fit inside my PC case.

I once trusted ATI, but after experiencing the power and efficiency of NVidia cards, I never went back, and I don't plan to now. All my research and all the opinions of several experienced computer builders that I've read have led me to see the 8800gt as the best candidate within my price range. Extremely efficient and reliable, and by far the most powerful card I can get for a reasonable amount of money.
 
Sound Artist
Joined
Jan 18, 2002
Messages
887
Best answers
0
So are you still having wireless issues? Okay so, first off.. wireless is not dependable, do not use it for gaming unless necessary and using an Ethernet cable will not affect your wireless users. Wireless interference is usually a big culprit for your wireless signal dropping, try using channels 1 or 11. Avoid having it between or on anything that transmits or disrupts a wireless signal, (ie phones, microwave, tv, fridge, ect) Also might want to monitor who your sharing your wireless with. Torrenting will cause problems with most, if not all routers. A lot have updated their firmware(might be a good idea for you too) to handle more connections but once it reaches a certain point your wireless will drop. You're also going to see high ping times when your bro is eating up your bandwidth pie in the other room.
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom