Hello,

I have a LinkSys WRT54g wireless router connected to a Motorola SurfBoard
cable modem. Several time a day the router drops the connections and has to
be reset.
It is connected with cables to two desktops, an IBM NetVista A60 running
Windows 2000 Pro, the other, a Dell XPS 410 running Windows XP Pro.
It is also connected with cable to a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop running
Windows XP Pro.
There are two machines connected via wireless connection, a Dell desktop
running Windows XP Home Edition, and a Dell laptop Inspiron 9300 running
Windows XP Media Center Edition.
The setup worked well for over several years, the Inspiron 9300 was added
over a year ago and the Dell XPS 410 was added a couple of months ago.
About a month ago the Inspiron had to be repaired by Dell and it appears
that after it came back is when the problems started.

I have looked at the IP configurations on all machines and it looks OK to
me. I don't know that much about networks, but I was able to set up the
network initially without any problems.

I have Googled the problem and it looks like some routers are more
troubleprone than others. I am wondering if I should buy another one. I
might want to do that in any case, I could use one with a USB datalink.

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

Ragnar

When the connection fails, can the machines ping each other? Can they ping
your router?

Thank you Noozer,

I think I tried that and found that they could not. When it happens again I
will try all combinations

Ragnar

If you can't ping between your PC's, then the router itself is faulty and
should be replaced. If they can ping each other, but the internet is dead,
there may be compatibility problems between your router and cable modem, or
your cable signal isn't as good as it could be.

Today my wife said she could not access the Internet so I tried some pinging
and found that all combinations worked except none of the other machines
could ping my wife's laptop.
It turned out she was able to access the Internet after all. I think it just
took a little time for the wireless connection to hook up.
But I did a little further investigation and found, not surprising, that in
Network Neighbourhood, my wife's laptop does not show up either, but she can
see all the other machines.
I suspect that when my wife's laptop was repaired, Dell changed some setting
because earlier the machine was visible on the network.
But I checked the properties of the LAN connection and I don't see anything
obvious. The services and protocols are:

LAN Connection:
Client for MS Networks
File and Printer Sharing for MS Networks
Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

Wireless Connection:
Client for MS Networks
Intel Wireless Connection agent
File and Printer Sharing for MS Networks
QoS Packet Scheduler
Wireless security Protocol
Homenet Manager Wireless Protocol
Auto Internet Protocol
AEGIS Protocol
WLAN Transport Protocol
Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

The Windows Firewall is disabled, as it is on all the machines, but the
Personal Firewall in Norton or McAffee , my wife's laptop and my new Dell
desktop has McAffee, the two other machines has Norton Internet Security.

Ragnar

How to connect two XP machines using Cross-over cable?
Networking ME, XP Securely on LAN
Problems with mixed WIN 2000 and XP Computres
Configuring NAT on WinXP
Two Routers, One NAT
Connecting to fileserver: logon required
Remote Desktop conneciton
Network setup
UPNP command line wrapper?
Cannot ping DHCP server, but ipconfig/renew works fine