Wireless network help please

[Joel_vRS]

first let me give you some back ground..... PC1 XP Home, connects directly to the net, and has a Dlink 802.11b PCI wireless network card,

Laptop 1 XP Pro, Connects to the net using PC1 as a gateway, and has a D Link 802.11b PCMIA card.....

Now both machines dont have a problem seeing or connecting to each other, for the first 5-10min then we lose the ability to load web pages in IE but msn messenger still works for servral mins... then that stops working... leave it alone and it all come back then goes etc etc ....

any ideas ??

Joel

[yhwman]

What sort of signal level do you get on the laptop? Does it noticeably dip when you lose access?

[Joel_vRS]

usally it says excellent or good connectef at 11.mbps...i thats not mega quick but quick enoght for us..

[ventmore]

Are there any messages on PC1 when this happens?

[SkodiRS]

What's your set up?

Do you have an internal ADSL modem? If you are using the wireless card as an access point to the internal modem perhaps you have to set-up connection sharing as you appear not to have any routing functions.

[yhwman]

There must be some kind of routing if IE can work, albeit briefly, on the laptop. If you can, beg/borrow/steal some other wireless adaptors. Had an SMC one in my parents PC that kept dropping the signal but worked fine in my computer. Borrowed a friends USB wireless dongle, attached it to parents PC and everything worked. Have now swapped card for dongle with friend

[Joel_vRS]

yes PC1 has an internal PCI adsl modem

no error messages or anything

[oilymoyle]

Had similar problem with Netgear wireless router, but found patches which solved the problem. Worth a try?

yes PC1 has an internal PCI adsl modem

no error messages or anything

[davidcollins01]

When i had this problem with my wireless setup, i set up a proxy on the machine as well as using ICS wizard. Used proxy+ and it was quick to setup and ran stable for ages without taking resource.

[WW_VRS]

Real issue is that you are using the cards in AdHoc mode, whereas most of these things are designed to work in infrastructure mode. Windows is doing ICS in order for your network to work properly.

It would be more stable to buy a wireless ADSL router, turn off your PCI ADSL card, and do 'it' the usual manner, which is ADSL router -> line and then have the wireless cards/dongles (whichever you prefer) in your machines.

I've used NetGear, LinkSys, DLink so far, all were fine in that configuration

[PUGSYTHEBEAR]

If the cards are set up to use Ad-Hoc method rather than Infrastructure or Access Point Preferred, there should be no problem as it's not continuously scanning for routers. I do agree that routers are the way forward, my desktop has been connected now for 24 days without losing connection.

[WW_VRS]

As you say, it should work fine

I tend to have some dropouts when an old car causes major interference, followed by other wireless routers in the area getting 'under mine' A quick power cycle fixes it, most of the time