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I work in a small office and we set up a WLAN (using a Linksys WRT54G) last April. We usually have 4 computers and two printers on the WLAN and everything worked great until this September. Now the router will stop broadcasting for anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. Resetting the router doesn't work, nor did changing the channel. I've updated to the latest firmware and that didn't work. We're not overlapping with any other wireless networks, although they may not be broadcasting their SSID. We've tried using other router brands (Netgear, Dlink) and still have the same issues. The computers are all XP Pro and mixed with SP1 and SP2, so I don't that's the problem. The office is an open space with almost no walls to cause interference. I've played with the security settings using WEP, WPA, and MAC filtering to no avail.

I'm running out of ideas as to what could be causing these drop outs. If you guys have any suggestions or links I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[DarienA]

So if I understand correctly you've used multiple wireless routers in this office and the same issue eventually happens to the them all.... they'll shut down and stop broadcasting?

If that's the case I'd look at network cards next.

And can you describe what you mean when you say stop broadcast... when you browse to the router does it still show itself as active?

 

[crumbs]

So if I understand correctly you've used multiple wireless routers in this office and the same issue eventually happens to the them all.... they'll shut down and stop broadcasting?

If that's the case I'd look at network cards next.

And can you describe what you mean when you say stop broadcast... when you browse to the router does it still show itself as active?

1. Sorry, I wasn't clear, there is only one wireless router. I tried several other brands to determine if it was a Linksys issue, but it happens to all of them.

2. Basically the network is gone, none of the computers can detect the network, even though the WLAN light on the router say it's still broadcasting.

I'm not sure it's the cards since they are different brands and include internal wireless on the notebooks we have.

 

[DarienA]

1. Sorry, I wasn't clear, there is only one wireless router. I tried several other brands to determine if it was a Linksys issue, but it happens to all of them.

2. Basically the network is gone, none of the computers can detect the network, even though the WLAN light on the router say it's still broadcasting.

I'm not sure it's the cards since they are different brands and include internal wireless on the notebooks we have.

Yes but it's possible that one bad card could be broadcasting too much "noise".

Do you have any of the PC's plugged directly in to the router? I'd be curious to know what happens with a PC plugged directly in to the router when the network goes down... can the wired PC still see the router?

Not sure how many free time you have to experiment. I just think at this point that if it isn't the router(because you've tried multiple wireless brand routers in there) it has to be one of the wireless cards pushing too much noise.

But I could be wrong.

Are you or anyone near your office (i.e. other offices, nearby houses, etc.) using 2.4GHz phones? Those can definately interfere with 802.11g wifi. The time interval you gave is a pretty good fit for a phone call.

Hadn't even thought of that... but yup that's a good possible reason as well. crumbs does it happen with any type of regularity?

 

[Lhadatt]

Are you or anyone near your office (i.e. other offices, nearby houses, etc.) using 2.4GHz phones? Those can definately interfere with 802.11g wifi. The time interval you gave is a pretty good fit for a phone call.

 

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Yes but it's possible that one bad card could be broadcasting too much "noise".

Do you have any of the PC's plugged directly in to the router? I'd be curious to know what happens with a PC plugged directly in to the router when the network goes down... can the wired PC still see the router?

Not sure how many free time you have to experiment. I just think at this point that if it isn't the router(because you've tried multiple wireless brand routers in there) it has to be one of the wireless cards pushing too much noise.

But I could be wrong.

Thanks, I'll try leaving one of the notebooks wired to the router. I'll look around to see if we have any spare WLAN adapters and try to swap them out when it goes down again.

The part that I find strange is we didn't make any changes since this spring, all the hardware is the same. The only major software changes was installing SP2 on a couple of the computers.

 

[crumbs]

Are you or anyone near your office (i.e. other offices, nearby houses, etc.) using 2.4GHz phones? Those can definately interfere with 802.11g wifi. The time interval you gave is a pretty good fit for a phone call.

The network goes down once a day typically, at least when I'm here (8:30AM and 5:00PM). We don't have any cordless phones in the office, but I'm not really sure about our neighbors, who are also businesses, including an SBC field office which is approx. 75ft from the router.

 

[Lhadatt]

Are the dropouts randomly timed?

You might want to check with your neighbors and your landlord, see if they're running a phone like that or any other 2.4Ghz device.

 

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Are the dropouts randomly timed?

You might want to check with your neighbors and your landlord, see if they're running a phone like that or any other 2.4Ghz device.

Yeah, they're random, but only once a day. I've decided to keep a log of the time each day it happens, something I should have been doing all along. I'll check with the neighboring businesses to see what they have.

 

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Ok, I think you guys were right about the phone interference. The guy next door has a Plantronics headset phone. I'm pretty sure that's the cause since he's bought it in September, right when we started having the problem. The phone must not have a decent channeling hopping feature since he had previously used a cordless phone without problems (or it could have been a 900mhz model). Now I just have to figure out how to get the network to coexist with his phone. Thanks again for the help guys, I appreciate it.

 

[Pimpwerx]

The 2.4GHz phones futz up the 802.11G signal IIRC. But that said, ALL wireless routers I've used have intermittent signals. My router drops me a couple times a day. Most of the time it'll automatically reconnect after a few minutes, but sometimes I have to reboot my computer and reset the router. At least for the home, I'd say random loss of signal is par for the course. At my last job in VT, however, we never lost the wireless signal unless we were doing maintenance or if the outside connection went down. Then again, we did the install of the access points and everything ourselves, and performed proper range checks and whatnot. So the installation can be pretty important. Make sure those access points are mounted high on the walls for max coverage. PEACE.