Home Network Help

[Fire0nice228]

Need some help with internet issues..

We moved to new apartment and had to get comcast. We use a linksys E1200 wireless router for the past year and didn't have any issues at our old apartment with Dish Network internet. When we moved Comcast wanted to charge us 8.99 a month for the modem so we decided to go out and buy our own and get our money back out of it in 10 months or so. So we bought a motorola SurfBoard 6141 modem and are using the same year old router.

We basically daily lose wifi in our apartment. The internet modem and router are in our livingroom so I dont think walls or distance are an issue. We are able to restore it by unplugging the router and plugging it back in. We never touch the modem. Usually a quick unplug and plug straight back in gets the wifi back up. Speed is okay.

Now if the wifi is down we can plug an ethernet cable into the back of the router and hook up to a computer and have no wifi access but be able to access the internet on the wired computer. So I am wondering if the wifi part is dying and I should get a new router since we never have to reset the modem and can even get internet through the router using ethernet cables or if there are some settings that I could adjust to get better connection or what.

Another potential problem is that I am in an apartment and there are about 20+ visible connections at any one time for wifi and maybe signal issues?

Any help is appreciated..

[Pavel Bure]

Keep comcast TV. Drop the internet, find an xfinity customer in your building, connect to their wifi, put in your comcast ID, boom.

[Factorial]

Connect to a neighbor's open WIFI?

[pittsoccer33]

if you're losing wifi connection to your router i dont think the modem has anything to do with it. you could test that for sure by unplugging the modem and just trying to maintain a connection to the router/other computers on the network.

if you have an Android phone get an app called Wifi Analyzer. You can see what channel other networks in your building are operating on - perhaps they are interfering with yours. if they are you should be able to change the channel your wireless signal is spitting out.

but if you can plug ethernet cables into the router I have no idea why you wouldn't. i despise using wifi. i have a router and two switches now so i can keep everything hardwired.

[shmenguin]

maybe there's a DHCP issue. the modem and the router might be fighting over who's assigning IP addresses. when you power cycle it's cool, but then one machine is overriding the other or something like that.

it's the end of a stressful day, so i'm fried and not sure that this is possible...but it's my gut guess.

[pittsoccer33]

maybe there's a DHCP issue. the modem and the router might be fighting over who's assigning IP addresses. when you power cycle it's cool, but then one machine is overriding the other or something like that.

This was my first thought too. I have the 6121 modem, and I know it has some weird DHCP server capability. But I then I got to thinking if it was DHCP that hard wired devices would have some troubles too, right?

[dodint]

The wifi channel suggestion was the best I've seen so far. I'm so used to living far enough away from folks I hadn't considered it.

[ffemtreed]

upgrading the firmware in the linksys router would be my 1st step.

Define what you mean by losing wifi --- do you stay connected to the wireless network and just can't access the internet or are you getting disconnected from the wireless network as well?

Channel fighting can be an issue when a lot of access points(routers) are setup within a small area, your only solution at this point is to try and come up with a coverage map and get your neighbors to try and play nice by staying on an assigned frequency. Having said that, this doesn't sound like a channel problem, those are usually noticed as slow speed and frequent dissconects/reconnects without having to reboot the router.

[Fire0nice228]

upgrading the firmware in the linksys router would be my 1st step.

Define what you mean by losing wifi --- do you stay connected to the wireless network and just can't access the internet or are you getting disconnected from the wireless network as well?

Channel fighting can be an issue when a lot of access points(routers) are setup within a small area, your only solution at this point is to try and come up with a coverage map and get your neighbors to try and play nice by staying on an assigned frequency. Having said that, this doesn't sound like a channel problem, those are usually noticed as slow speed and frequent dissconects/reconnects without having to reboot the router.

I have the thing where it says connected to my Wifi but limited or no connectivity and then it says error loading webpage cannot display the webpage and I have to unplug replug.

I dont have a droid and i'm struggling to find another wifi channel analyzer. Is there another way to see how that is? I too think the problem may be that somehow because there is SO MANY wifi things open. But I dont know much about this type of stuff.

And we don't hardwire, well my wife has been cause she works from home on the evenings sometimes and cant afford to be kicked off in the middle of trying to submit a web based thing for her work or she has to start the thing over every time. But then we got cat5 cords drug across the livingroom to the couch and its a mess/hassle. We dont have a computer workstation type thing.

Also on Wilmington NC, lived there for the funnest 3 years of my life! LOL!