we have wireless internet in my house and i have a laptop that has the built in wireless tuner thing...the computer with the cable modem and the router used to be in the room next to mine but my mom has since moved that computer downstairs to her office. since, my wireless internet continously goes out every 5-10 mins, everytime i get online, i'm practically guaranteed that i will lose the connection to the wireless internet. is this a problem with my computer? or am i just too far away from the router?? or do i need to reconfigure anything internally with my computer????? any help would be appreciated

6/7/2006 3:16:46 PM

probably too far away if you get intermittent access and it used to work fine when it was closer

you could try moving the wireless router a little closer to your wireless card or install a WAP (wireless access point)...WAPs are basically "extension cords" of wireless signals, if you will

6/7/2006 3:36:35 PM

where do i get a WAP and how much does it generally cost? is it like an install cd-rom??

6/7/2006 4:15:15 PM

no a wireless access point looks almost identical to a wireless router and you're looking to drop about as much as you would for a router

[Edited on June 7, 2006 at 4:32 PM. Reason : .]

6/7/2006 4:32:08 PM

make sure that you get the same brand...in most cases, different brands of wireless routers and access points won't work together

that said, depending on the brand and model of your wireless router, you might be able to pick up another router of the same brand and model and use THAT as your access point...it's been my experience that wireless routers tend to be cheaper than access points in a lot of cases

6/7/2006 4:34:23 PM

you should post the distance and amount of things that block the path to the the router from your laptop - if it's under 100ft in a normal house - it's probably some sort of interference - phone/microwave/etc

Quote :

"in most cases, different brands of wireless routers and access points won't work together"

this is very untrue

6/7/2006 4:38:44 PM

since when? using a combination of belkin, linksys, netgear, and d-link, only in one case was able to get one wireless router to connect to an access point of another brand

GameOver4U, go get yourself a WPA, doesn't matter which brand, and call over OmarBadu when it doesn't work

6/7/2006 4:54:38 PM

let's start off by saying you guys probably mean a repeater when you are saying WPA

in a typical house there is never a need for a repeater - you shouldn't need one unless the house is something over 5/6000 sqft and the router is in the corner of the house

if in fact you did mean a WPA - plug it into the closest place you have ethernet run to where you want to access the network

brands do not matter in all cases

6/7/2006 5:01:39 PM

you can get different brands to work together

but generally, a d-link router and a d-link wap are going to configure easier than a d-link router and a linksys wap, for example

6/7/2006 5:15:57 PM

okay, i stand corrected - i am indeed talking about a repeater, but since i've only used access points for that purpose (simply supplying power without having any ethernet cables run), i was using the terms interchangeably (my mistake)

that said, i know that netgear and linksys both sell "range extenders" (repeaters) that just plug in and relay your wireless signal...i have also been able to use a belkin wireless router as a repeater after changing a built-in setting...in these cases, i have only been able to get them to work with a wireless router of the same brand

6/7/2006 5:19:22 PM

this man seems reasonably convinced of his analysis

6/8/2006 8:31:45 PM