Re: >>Home network?
stuart said:
I purchased a Linsys wireless kit [broken link removed]
This is very reliable kit so, all things being equal, I would not expect any problems using it.
Thought getting the router and wirelss laptop card might prevent stupid problems with fixing settings
I don't understand this.
It seems I either have messed up the wireless settings or there is inteferance
What settings did you change from the factory defaults on the router and laptop card?
I have disconnected the cordless phones, even though it is 1.88 to 1.9Ghz, but it does not change anything
You can reconnect these - there is no way that they can interfere with 802.11b/g which operates in the 2.4GHz band. I presume that you're not running any other 2.4GHz equipment (e.g. a microwave oven) continuously?
The signal being picked up by the computer from the router fluctuates greatly and sometimes disconnects
Quite possible that this could be caused by a driver/firmware problem. Have you ensured that you have the latest firmware for the
Linksys router and the latest drivers for the laptop card? I know that with the
D-Link router that I have the latest firmware was actually totally unreliable and I had to roll back to the previous version. With the latest version wireless networking disconnects were occurring every few minutes but with the older version connections are reliable. Obviously this is all specific to the
D-Link router that I havd and not applicable to your
Linksys one but just pointing out the sort of thing that can occur when the firmware or drivers are buggy.
I also had to play about a bit with the security settings (e.g. encryption,
MAC address filtering,
SSID broadcast -
Windows XP wireless zero config doesn't like this being switched off etc.) to get things working reliably.
Also - as
Rainyday says making sure that the router placement isn't a problem is worth checking. Mind you mine is not ideally placed but I get a perfect signal all through the house (haven't tried it outside yet) although I
don't live in a mansion!
Any possibility that you can borrow other wireless gear (e.g. another wireless laptop) from a friend/colleague to do some more process of elimination testing?