I need help from you computer people out there. The problem? Wireless internet.
I go home in the evening, turn on my laptop, it picks up my wireless signal and all is well. I start to putter around on the computer, eat dinner, watch TV, whatever. After a couple hours, BAM, my laptop loses the wireless signal! And nothing I do brings it back — not clicking “repair connection”, not restarting the computer, not deactivating the wireless card and then reactivating it.
My desktop is still connected, so it’s not the internet connection itself. It’s got to be either the router, or my laptop. Making matters more confusing is the fact that after dropping the connection, my laptop continues to see my network, even displaying it in the “available wireless networks” window. But when I click connect and put in the key, it thinks for a while and then just cuts off again. It never reconnects.
What do I do? This happens regularly, on an almost nightly basis.
Perhaps you’re losing the IP address. The router is probably assigning one dynamically, but there could be a problem. Do you know how to check what the IP address is? You might want to check it a) when it’s working and then again during the connectivity problem. My guess is that while it’s working the address will be something like 192.168.x.x and when it’s not working it will either be 169.254.x.x or entirely blank.
(Checking the IP address is easy. Go to Start > Run > and type “cmd” and hit return. From there typ “ipconfig” and hit return. You’ll see some gibberish. The IP address should be one of the lines of gibberish.)
I’ll check that tonight. So what happens if that is the problem? How do I fix it? Can I tell it to use a static IP?
Did it start suddenly or did it always happen?
When the wireless starts acting up at our apartment, we can usually fix it by just unplugging the router for a few seconds and then plugging it back in. I have no idea if we’re having the same problem, but it’s worth a try…
Might have something to do w/ signal interference. Our wireless always goes out when we answer the phone or make a call on our (2.4Ghz) cordless phone, and it takes a minute or two for my laptop to find the signal again after the call is over.
I found out how to pick a static ip address by going to the troubleshooting section on my router’s website.
If the problem is as I described above, configuring the laptop to use a valid static IP may be a good solution, yes.