We have been having ongoing problems with our net connection for nearly a month now which has been doing both Dads and my heads in! Our current ISP is Zen and they have been fantastic over the past 5 years or so, in fact we have been so used to a good connection the recent issues have annoyed us even more.

Our net connection started dropping out around a month or so. After talking with Zen, we decided to try a new Thompson router. After trying this for a week or so we were still getting drop outs. Zen then replaced with another Thompson router - and again we had the same problems. We then upgraded to a DGN2000 Netgear router - after being advised this was a good way forward. Spending many hours setting up the Netgear and again trialling this for about 2 weeks we again hit net connection drop outs. We then had BT involved checking the line and running tests.

After more problems we then tried changing to a Belkin F5D8636V4 version 2 Uk router which we have at the moment. This router has a habit of dropping the connection after about an hour and halfs usage! We have looked at all of the pc's on our network (up to 10 connected wirelessly - a mixture of windows xp / vista and linux pc's as well as a Revo Wireless Internet radio). I have even been changing, re-installing and upgrade wireless cards and drivers!

The current Belkin router occasionally locks up completely - needing a reset in order to get the connection working again! Both the ISP and BT are at a loss now!

For info all service packs on the pc's are up to date. Routers are on each phone extension and we have spent many hours working on this now!

Any help / ideas greatly appeciated. Thanks Rich

Microfilters all OK? About all I can think of off the top of my head.

Have you installed a network identification tool to see who near you has wireless routers and what channel they are using? Our router is downstairs and using the laptop there was fine, but the desktop PC upstairs would only occaisionally connect to the router - turned out a neighbours router always used the same channel and upstairs their signal was stronger than ours downstairs. I manually set the channel to something inbetween what the other local routers were showing and it has been fine since.

Thanks for the replies.

In terms of microfilters - we are using new ones throughout the house. We replaced them all with brand new ones to rule this out.

Dad has been using a network identification tool to see which networks might be interferring with the router. There are quite a few and we have changed the channels to try and improve things!

Literally 20 minutes ago the Belkin router we are currently lost the Internet again - even trying the lan connection on the back of the router made no difference. We have reset it (for the upteenth time over the past few days) and it is back up and running. It seems to lock up when it looses the Internet connection, you can't even access the router ontrol panel. This would seem to point towards a problem with the ADSL line / BT rather than a wireless issue.

Has anyone got any further thoughts / or experienced this before? :S

Thanks Rich

Have you installed a network identification tool to see who near you has wireless routers and what channel they are using? Our router is downstairs and using the laptop there was fine, but the desktop PC upstairs would only occaisionally connect to the router - turned out a neighbours router always used the same channel and upstairs their signal was stronger than ours downstairs. I manually set the channel to something inbetween what the other local routers were showing and it has been fine since.

I seem to have a similar issue as my laptop will not connect to the router in the same room, but will if I take it up a few floors...

Looks Like I will have to move the route up stairs and see how that goes....

The first thing I would do is disconnect all fixed line telephone handsets in the house. Even though you have filters it's always a worthwhile.

If the Thompson, Netgear and Belkin Routers are all experiencing drop out's or lock ups and you have a physical line connection to the Internet (which is what I read from your post) then the problem is nothing to do with nearby wireless networks or the routers. You have a line issue that needs to be resolved and removing all fixed line handsets is about the only thing that you can do. If that works then reconnect them one at a time until you find the problem one. If it doesn't work it's something BT and your ISP will have to solve.

Also resetting the router you are using to factory default settings is always worthwhile. if you have been playing with settings you never one which tiny well buried tick box has been ticked or unticked and is making some difference.

Belkins have a bad reputation, you would be better off with the Netgear.

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Having said that, my 2 year old DGN2000 has started playing up.

Buy a TP-Link, havent had any issues with any of the TP-Link wifi stuff I have bought over the last 5 years.

Edited 30 August, 201015 yr by GentleGiant

Belkins have a bad reputation, you would be better off with the Netgear.

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Having said that, my 2 year old DGN2000 has started playing up.

Buy a TP-Link, havent had any issues with any of the TP-Link wifi stuff I have bought over the last 5 years.

Thats the next one we were going to try! I think the Netgear we got originally wasn't any good (not the DGN2000) . Dad is returning the Belkin, and we are now running on the original speedtouch modem again.

Thats the next one we were going to try! I think the Netgear we got originally wasn't any good (not the DGN2000) . Dad is returning the Belkin, and we are now running on the original speedtouch modem again.

My bloody netgear went doolally the other night, but seemed Ok after a hard reboot. Then yesterday I could only get 0.3Mb downloads; after trying all the obvious stuff I dug out an ancient Zoom X6 router and "Hey Presto!" 5.5Mb again.

The only problem with the Zoom is, it keeps over heating, so I have a new TP-Link on order from Aria. That plus the SouthBridge borking on my brand new PC means I am spending a lot on repairs this week!! :(

Anyone with a Gigabyte MA78 chipset who looses wifi and/or Ethernet, it is a BIOS corruption issue (BOTH of them). You need to send your mobo back to get the chips pulled and replaced; downloading a new Bios doesnt work. They are supposedly working on a fix for the issue.

My bloody netgear went doolally the other night, but seemed Ok after a hard reboot. Then yesterday I could only get 0.3Mb downloads; after trying all the obvious stuff I dug out an ancient Zoom X6 router and "Hey Presto!" 5.5Mb again.

The only problem with the Zoom is, it keeps over heating, so I have a new TP-Link on order from Aria. That plus the SouthBridge borking on my brand new PC means I am spending a lot on repairs this week!! :(

Anyone with a Gigabyte MA78 chipset who looses wifi and/or Ethernet, it is a BIOS corruption issue (BOTH of them). You need to send your mobo back to get the chips pulled and replaced; downloading a new Bios doesnt work. They are supposedly working on a fix for the issue.

Not great - sorry to hear your having so many problems and such an expensive week! You have put us off having a Netgear thats for certain!

I would be interested to hear how you get on with the TP-Link router. Not heard of them before and not yet used Aria, although have been tempted.

Not great - sorry to hear your having so many problems and such an expensive week! You have put us off having a Netgear thats for certain!

I would be interested to hear how you get on with the TP-Link router. Not heard of them before and not yet used Aria, although have been tempted.

On the Aria topic - only problem item from them has been hard drives - and perhaps it's a coincidence ,but both my son and I have had practically the same problem .I even sent one back ,to be told no fault found

(after failing a Maxtor check) .Got it back -it then worked ok , but I had to update bios on Mobo to run XP ,whereas before it installed & ran with no problems .