wirelessness

[dakegra]

Greetings, lj HiveMind

I trust you are well this morning? I have, as you might expect, a problem.

Careful observers of this journal may recall that recently I purchased a shiny new wireless router. All well and good, but I've started noticing some issues with it.

Mid-evening, my PC and phone will lose connection with the internet. The wireless widget still shows that I'm connected to Hexnet (my router's SSID) with a lovely strong connection, but I'm unable to browse to any web pages.

I'm also unable to get to the router's admin web page - I can't see it in Firefox, and I can't ping the IP, it just times out.

If I go downstairs and power the router off then on again (as I can't reboot it via the web portal), generally it'll work fine until the following evening.

All the lights on the router suggest that it's happy as larry, and the correct lights are on, indicating that it's working ok and has an internet connection.

Router:
Belkin Wireless N Modem Router

Things connected to the router:
1. PC running XP SP3 - usb dongle (b/g)
2. mobile phone - HTC Hero (b/g)
3. XBox - wireless 'N' adapter

Interestingly, I've not had the router bomb out on me when I've solely been on the Xbox, which is connected via XBox live.

PC is only connected in the evenings. Router is left on 24/7 (yes, I know, power waste)

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Comments

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

I think your ISP is dropping DNS. Xbox live keeps open connections, so losing DNS for a minute or two probably won't cause issues.

Oh, wait. No, you can't connect to the router's web interface. Hm. DHCP leases? That could be it; give your PC a static IP (one that's not being used by the DHCP server) and see if that helps. Or increase the lease timeout.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

shouldn't the PC get a new IP every time I fire it up? I thought the router would automagically assign an IP when the PC tried to connect?

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

That's the theory, but your router may vary.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

I'll have a play around with it tonight, you've given me somewhere to start!

cheers :)

[alicephilippa.livejournal.com]

I have a zyxel that does similar things. I've not been able to pin down the true cause, but I think that an internal table in the router software wraps or overflows causing it to sort of crash.

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommed upgrading the router to the latest firmware in case it's a known and fixed bug with it.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

I did check that, and it assured me there were no updates available. I do wonder (following nalsa's comment) if it's something getting itself overexcited in the router and getting itself all confuzzled.