Not really a game development question so if anyone can direct me to a more appropriate site I would appreciate it. I got struck by lighting and blew all my network cards. So I switched to all wireless in the hopes of avoiding a route in for surges that pretty well stomp my suppressors and laugh at them. Everything works fine except I get these disconnects. I had a lot of problesm getting the cards on the computers to connect at all at first. I believe tech support had me lower the beacon interval as well as the fragmentation and RTS thresholds. There is also a DTIM interval. I have no real idea what any of those mean. It reconnects automatically and many applications aren't interupted by it so I've tended to ignore it. I've been trying to use Rhapsody Radio and it disconnects every time the connection drops. The drop is well under a minute and things like WoW are pretty much unaffected. The router is a Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G.

It's probably best to use the Windows Wireless Zero Config for your wireless adapters. It's built into Windows. I used to have problems with diconnects on both Cisco and Netgear wireless cards when using the manufacturer's software. Apparently Windows just does it better.

I'd also recommend this site: www.broadbandreports.com They tend to have a bunch of information on all things networking.

Also it's just a problem with wireless. I have a USB powered receiver that is less than 10 feet away from our router, pointed right at it, and I still get D/Cs. I am using the Windows Wireless Zero config as well. Most of the time, it's fine for when I listen to streaming music over Winamp, but when it disconnects, it takes everything with it. Just like yours, it also reconnects as well immedietly after. I haven't changed any settings or anything.

What kind of wireless cards are you using now? The PCI ones or the USB?

Linksys WMP54G cards which are PCI cards.

I bought the very same router, and had frequent wireless disconnects and then the 4th port just up and died.

I switched to a D-Link DI-624 Wireless-G router about a year ago, and haven't been forced to even reset it once since.

That's interesting. It might be worth switching routers. I'm pretty sure I had the same problem with the previous LinkSys router, but then I was mainly only using it with laptops. I had problems with a wireless media device, but assumed it was simply too far away.

It seems to be like it's interferance. Yesterday I finally gave up on trying to even reply to this post on this computer and the other was dropping about every song I tried listen to on Rhapsody. Today barely any disconnects. Generally around noon I can barely keep a connection five minutes, but 2AM it's virtually flawless. Maybe get a disconnect in two hours.

And yes, they are Linksys PCI cards. I have them on three computers, but with screen savers and auto-sleep I seldom notice if all three disconnect at the same time. I've noticed they have a couple of times.

Changing routers would be worth it if it gets my color laser off the wires. As near as I can tell there is no real way to protect the network. I have the cable coming through a suppressor as well as everything on power suppressors. I think the work fine as long as you don't get a strike too close. It seems once you get a strike within 10-20 feet the induced current in the network cables is blowing the cards. That close may well blow the radio receivers as well, but my real fear is frying the entire computer.

The last strike was real nasty. Melted the groundwire on the cable terminal outside. Also blew the cable box, tv, sterio, air conditioner, every network card, the cable modem, router and all the surge suppressors.

I hope you had good homeowner's insurance!

Have you tried using another channel on your network? That may sometimes help with interference resistance. Also, if you're running G, try B (or vice versa) -- it may slow down the network, but it's still going to be faster than the internet connection you have, and if it fixes the dropping, then it's probably worth it.

Well, I wish it had of occured to me to call the insurance company when it happened. It wouldn't have paid many of the expenses such as the $1400 TV to replace the $300 one :), but it would have helped.

It's been an entertaining adventure. I tried a D.Link storage router. Nice little feature set, but alas it stayed connected for less than a minute at a time. It also only connected at 36mbs. So I swapped it for a Netgear storage router. I seem to have fewer disconnect problems. Oddly it seems two disconnects twice a day at midnight and noon.

The netgear router also only connects at 36mbs. Rather sad since it is a 108mbs router, but since my cards are 54mbs it isn't as bad a hit. It kinda defeats the whole storage router idea and makes the "greater range" claims seem rather laughable. I'm not sure how wireless works, but it seems odd to me that I connect at the same speed at twice the distance since that a quarter of the signal strength. I'm thinking maybe the whole router drops to the lowest speed any device can handle when it powers up so maybe powering down everything would help.

Far more annoying though is the that the router only supports read only access to NTFS drives and I can't find a way under XP to format it as anything but NTFS. Well, ok, so I had to use a command line, but that's like just as good as impossible. Still, if XP uses NTFS by default and how to change it isn't readily visible then why does the router only allow read access?

Grrr... Can't format a 160GB drive as FAT32. I don't think partitioning it is an option either. So I guess that puts me back at square one. Well, as soon as I return it. Slower connection and no friggin storage.

[Edited by - LilBudyWizer on November 11, 2005 4:48:34 PM]