internet drops out randomly virgin media super hub [VMDG480] router

[wpe]

hello peeps quick question when at home on the net wired or wireless the net drops out randomly and sometimes will not reconnect unless i reboot the laptop other times it will stay connected for hours with no problem I've had the laptop checked out by a computer programmer/ trouble shooter he found nothing wrong and says my laptop is fine even though its old and on XP home edition I've spoken the the net provider and they say there i connection is fine but i'm not sure as i have had the laptop with me today on my mobile dongle at work and connected to the net all day with no issues what so ever the provider fitted a new super hub recently just to keep me quite but its still the same at home wired Ethernet wired or wireless please help and tell me it's not me i'm pretty sure wired and wireless are independent in the laptop so i could understand the wireless dropping out but not wired surely and works perfectly on the dongle. also when connected at home i get a message about IP address conflict and a window error report to do with win32?? and the the laptop locks up at times [ freezes ] but don't do it when on the dongle

[wpe]

Re: internet

ps the above is a packard bell L4

[3d0]

Re: internet

Had it happen to me, my best bet is the wireless router. Mine would randomly loose connection, a quick restart and your online again but not for long.
It was a TP-link TL-WR940N, installed dd-wrt on it, since then had no trouble.

[clearchris]

Re: internet

IP conflict means two machines at your house have the same IP.

Verify this by pulling up the arp tables on a different machine, ideally after not having the machine in question connected for a while.

"arp -a" gets it done in linux, i believe it is similar under windows.

[Kiriakos GR]

Re: internet

Many wireless routers are crappy in handling WiFi when there is in the same area too many wireless links.

3Com WL-560-WIFI bridge helps allot in noise suppression and readjust the connection speed on the fly, so to keep a stable connection with their clients.
Therefore if you need quality of service you have to buy it.

[wpe]

Re: internet

thanks chaps for the replys i don't no about the 2 IP address'sas i'm at home alone in the mornings when the IP conflict message pops up. i better get in touch with the provider AGAIN and mention the above answers. thanks again

[SteveNielsen]

Re: internet

An IP address conflict is not due to noise, it is due to improper configuration of a client. A $300 Com WL-500 Wifi bridge is bridge, not a router, it isn't going to solve anything. Changing connection speed is not going to change anything either. If there is interference in addition to the IP conflict then address that by changing Wifi channels to an unused one, they are two distinct issues and the connection speed isn't going to make any difference to either of them. This is a situation that throwing money at isn't going to fix, using knowledge will.

[wpe]

Re: internet

hi. how do i fix the IP conflict is it something i could do or is it down to the provider to sort out ? thanks again

[shovenose]

Re: internet

Make sure your laptop is using DHCP, not has a static IP address. Make sure your router has the DHCP server enabled.

Typical settings would be the router has IP 192.168.1.1 and it gives out IPs 192.168.1.2 through 192.168.1.250 also please check to make sure DHCP lease is set to a few days.

10.0.0.x or 172.16.0.x are also perfectly reasonable ranges if your router doesn't use 192.168.1.x

When you open cmd (command prompt) on your laptop please run ipconfig and provide the e entire results here.

Oh, also make sure your WiFi has a password if it's an open network there might be a lot of people on it hogging bandwidth and causing the router to run out of IPs to give out via DHCP.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: internet

What model router do you have?

[t.j.]

Re: internet

...

[wpe]

Re: internet

its a virgin media super hub [VMDG480] router. ill try and get the other info and put it up. thanks again

[wpe]

Re: internet

sorry peeps when i type in ipconfig in the run bar it flashes up a black screen for split second then disappear's so can@t get no info will keep trying unless theres something blocking me from getting this info

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: internet

You must open a command prompt then type ipconfig

[wpe]

Re: internet

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\wayne>ipconfig/all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : waynes
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Eth
ernet NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-C0-9F-E4-2B-F4

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network
Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-13-CE-BA-88-ED
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.88
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 194.168.4.100
194.168.8.100
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 27 March 2014 19:34:01
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 27 March 2014 20:34:01

C:\Documents and Settings\wayne>

[wpe]

Re: internet

still learning lol

[SteveNielsen]

Re: internet

Your ipconfig looks fine. After a quick search I'm sorry to say that it appears that the Virgin VMDG480 router is known for terrible wireless performance and as far as I can tell there have been no fixes offered for it, so throwing money at the problem may well be the solution after all. Even Virgin recommends that if you can't get it working then to buy your own router. Pretty sad really. A good WRT type router can be bought for about $50 US.

[JJR]

Re: internet

That Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter is ancient, I've seen a lot of them come in because of no/poor connection on modern routers.

Get yourself a USB Wireless adapter (TP-Link are OK and quite cheap) you should see a huge difference.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: internet

Old gear doesn't equate to bad gear and that Intel does not have a bad rep at all from what I see. In this case he's using a b/g router talking with a b/g card. True, some modern routers with b/g/n and all sorts of afterburner and frame burst stuff (which is often enabled even on "ancient" b/g routers) may pose problems for b/g cards (again depending on use and environment) but I don't think that is the case here. In this case his router has a known problem with wireless connections so I'd look into solving that first. As a test you could take the laptop to another know good wireless network and see how it performs and the odds are that it will work fine with a wifi router that actually works. The Virgin Media VMDG480 is known crap for wireless.

[shovenose]

Re: internet

His computer and wireless card are pretty old, but where I work up until very recently sold plenty of "old" refurbished laptops with the 2200BG chip and no computer ever came back from issues with that. Those who know me around here know I would be the first one to say that it's time for a new this that or the other.

I see no misconfigurations based on the ipconfig results above. Could try changing DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 to see if that helps - Google Public DNS is much better than that of most internet providers, and it's anycasted all over the globe for better performance.

I'd venture to say the ISP-provided router is a piece of junk. Here is a solid router for about $20:
http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DIR-601.../dp/B002VJL0OS