Just bought myself a nice Linksys wireless ADSL router and although it works (of a fashion) it doesn't work very well.

I'm connecting to Tiscali ADSL using a D-link ethernet ADSL modem. When this modem is connected straight to the PC it works fine, full speed. The problem occurs when the router is added to the mix.

Internet access if very "stop and start" through the router. The connection runs normally for a couple of minutes and then stops completly for a minute and then starts up again. This occurs with both a desktop PC connected with an ethernet cable to the router and a laptop connecting with a Linksys 802.11g wireless card.

I may work in IT but I'm a programmer not a network technician (dammit Jim) and I've reached the end of my limited knowledge. :(

Any ideas folks?

Thanks in advance.

can the laptop talk to the desktop ok ?

One thing to try on the router is to make sure the nework ports for the ethernet is running at 100mbps and not 10mpbs or auto as well as the laptop/pc one is running at that speed, then make sure duplex is set to full and not half. Try this first to see if that helps ?

I MIGHT well have the answer to this:D. This has been occuring with my ADSL/Wireless router recently, after I got Windows XP (are you using XP?) to configure my connection.

Basically, it turns out that XP has a 'service' which is used to configure your connection automatically. However, this configuration is continually trying to find wireless connections, which causes some wi-fi cards to 'hunt' and drop the current connection, so I'm lead to believe. You'll need to disable (or set to manual) and stop the 'wireless zero configuration service' which you find in a list under START->Control Panel->Admin* Tools->Services (under XP).

This does work for me (i.e. the connection stays up), but I have had some teething problems with my laptop starting the wi-fi service up automatically, which is a bit of a pain :(

Rich

One thing to try on the router is to make sure the nework ports for the ethernet is running at 100mbps and not 10mpbs or auto as well as the laptop/pc one is running at that speed, then make sure duplex is set to full and not half. Try this first to see if that helps ?

If you hard set the duplex you *must* do this at both ends, ie switch and PC as by default they will be autonegotiate. By changing to 100/full the other end will not be able to auto negotiate and will immediately drop to autoSENSE, detect the 100mb carrier and hence connect at 100/HALF - this is clearly bad news.

In general I would tend to leave everything on fully auto.

It does sound like its stalling looking for something, the question is whether its the lan or wan side of the router thats stalling.

Thanks for the quick responses guys.

I can't check any suggestions till I get home but I've now gotten a few things to try.

Answers to questions:

I've not tried getting the laptop and desktop networked. The router is working as a gateway only.

I am using Windows XP Home on both desktop and laptop machines.

The connection from the desktop is described as 100mbps by windows and the laptop's wireless connection as 54mbps.

The stalling does sound like the network is trying to look for something.

One other idea - might be worth trying a different wire from the router to the telephone socket (and/or different microfilter). Does the router have a web interface if so you could see if there is an error log which might help.

Which Linksys router did you get...generally ADSL routers have modems built in. If it's a WAG54G then you shouldn't need to use the D-Link.

Which D-link modem do you have as well?

Which Linksys router did you get...generally ADSL routers have modems built in. If it's a WAG54G then you shouldn't need to use the D-Link.

Which D-link modem do you have as well?

The router is a linksys WRT54G router only with no modem.

The D-link modem is a DSL-300T.

Basically' date=' it turns out that XP has a 'service' which is used to configure your connection automatically. However, this configuration is continually trying to find wireless connections, which causes some wi-fi cards to 'hunt' and drop the current connection, so I'm lead to believe. You'll need to disable (or set to manual) and stop the 'wireless zero configuration service' which you find in a list under START->Control Panel->Admin* Tools->Services (under XP).

[/quote']

Hmm, this sounds suspiciously like the problem I suffer on occasion, when the current connection gets dropped and the wireless card/adapter (I have both desktop and laptop on wireless connections) fall back on their (internal?) 169.254.???.??? address and 255.255.0.0 subnet mask. Can be a nuisance, and is totally unpredictable. Gets progressively worse as time passes - a re-install usually gives the connections a new lease of life with another couple of months of relatively problem-free networking.

Using your trick would it require a manual set-up of the wireless connection after every startup?

Thinking about that - perhaps you are getting a conflict with another network locally? Have you set up the security properly on the wireless side of things?

The neighbours have yet to migrate to wireless - so no chance of that. I do however only use MAC address control, so you could have a point there.

OTOH, the connections only get dropped on XP machines - the far-away desktop much more often than the usually nearby-to-the-router laptop. The W2K machine (also quite far away) continues its connection effortlessly all the time...

In response to Dutch, the wireless zero connection (WZC) service problem doesn't appear to need alternative nearby connections, it just decides to drop your own (on XP at least ).

In answer to the having to configure manually, not too sure about this as my Acer laptop has some automatic network executable of its own, not booted up my laptop since tinkering with it last night, so unsure whether I'll have to start wi-fi up or not. One thing to know is that my Wi-fi connection started up just fine and remained up BEFORE I got the XP network wizard to reconfigure the connection (for file sharing). After that, the WZC problem started to occur.

I'm betting its the WZC problem myself

Rich

I'm betting its the WZC problem myself

Agreed exept the problem occurs on both wired and wireless connections according to the original post...

Hav u tried using wires?

I've done a few wireless home networking jobs and i'm finding wireless to b unreliable.

My mate has the Netgear wireless router G and it was bloody expensive stuff but it kept giving us problems. Connections would randomly disappear and playing LAN games was a bit jerky.

So we hardwired the 4 PCs instead of wireless and all the problems have dissappeared. 2 PCs running XP pro and 2 running 98SE.

Giv hardwire a bash and c if that helps.

Thanks Rich, that could indeed be of help to me, but I agree that WZC problem can't be the solution to Freakcrab's trouble. (BTW, apologies for hijacking your thread, Freakcrab!)

Hav u tried using wires?

Alas, Kenny, the impossibility of using wires across three floors - it would have needed breaking up our house - made me go wireless in the first place...

LOL Thats true Dutch!

Hav u tried using wires?

I've done a few wireless home networking jobs and i'm finding wireless to b unreliable.

My mate has the Netgear wireless router G and it was bloody expensive stuff but it kept giving us problems. Connections would randomly disappear and playing LAN games was a bit jerky.

So we hardwired the 4 PCs instead of wireless and all the problems have dissappeared. 2 PCs running XP pro and 2 running 98SE.

Giv hardwire a bash and c if that helps.

If this is Netgear 834G running f/w 1.4 then there are some connection drop issues. Try rolling back to v1.3

The router is a linksys WRT54G router only with no modem.

The D-link modem is a DSL-300T.

I'll be trying this set-up probably on Friday so I'll keep you posted.

Agreed exept the problem occurs on both wired and wireless connections according to the original post...

Whoops, sorry, didn't read the full post in it's entirety...:(

Best of luck to you mate .....

Rich

Tried forcing full-duplex and that hasn't fixed the problem. Changed the IP address' of the modem and router to make sure there was not conflict, nope.

I think it's gonna have to wait till the weekend for me to fiddle with it some more.

Thanks folks.

A few thoughts/links:

Microsoft "Wireless Update Rollup":

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=826942

Same problem discussed on BroadbandReports:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9500878~mode=flat (Potential Fix)

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8727891 (WZC? This might be the fix)

Linksys KB:

http://linksys.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linksys.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_sid=Ct7Rgxdh&p_lva=&p_li=&p_page=1&p_prod_lvl1=1&p_prod_lvl2=20&p_cat_lvl1=15&p_cat_lvl2=&p_search_text=&p_new_search=1&p_search_type=search_nl

Tested out wired connection and everything worked ok.

Modem connected to the internet port on router and then one of the ethernet ports to the ethernet port on the pc/laptop.

You need to power up the devices in a particular order....modem, router then pc/laptop.

Did the same for the wireless connection and all was fine to....only done without encryption so far though.

Both connections came up first time without any problems.

Don't have any other suggestions...sorry. :(

Edited: tested with WEP - 64bit encryption and all is fine still.

Thanks again Guys.

Tried restarting everything in sequence but still no better.

Response seems slow. Clicking on a link will almost always result in a timeout error. Clicking again and it loads instantly.

Strange.