Eircom wireless dropping often very annoying

AIR-AUSSIE

Hi

I've Eircom Broadband with a netopia router. I'm using my laptop about 20m away from the router. The connection sometimes can drop every 10 or so minutes at the worst of times. I have changed to open DNS last night to see if that changes.

My wired connection with my desktop and laptop works fine without any dropping of connection.

So really I'm wondering what the problem could be.


Firstly could somebody tell me how to get my line stats please, so i can post it here?

Thanks in advance for any help.

dub45

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

Hi

I've Eircom Broadband with a netopia router. I'm using my laptop about 20m away from the router. The connection sometimes can drop every 10 or so minutes at the worst of times. I have changed to open DNS last night to see if that changes.

My wired connection with my desktop and laptop works fine without any dropping of connection.

So really I'm wondering what the problem could be.


Firstly could somebody tell me how to get my line stats please, so i can post it here?

Thanks in advance for any help.

As I keep pointing out :rolleyes: you don't have Eircom wireless you have Eircom dsl and you then use a wireless router to distribute your signal.

The wireless part of this has absolutely nothing to do with Eircom or any isp for that matter. You say that you are receiving the bb signal to your router no problem so Eircom's responsibility ends there. If you are having problems with your wireless signal changing your dns or examining your line stats is not going to help you.

Try changing the wireless channel that you are using - check to see if any of your neighbours are using the same wireless channel or check to see it there are any wireless devices in the house.

AIR-AUSSIE

dub45 wrote: »

As I keep pointing out :rolleyes: you don't have Eircom wireless you have Eircom dsl and you then use a wireless router to distribute your signal.


Try changing the wireless channel that you are using - check to see if any of your neighbours are using the same wireless channel or check to see it there are any wireless devices in the house.

OK please pardon my unenlightened-self.....

Could you tell how I could do check my wireless channel Vs my neighbours? There are bluetooth wireless devices... keyboard and 2 mice, would this make a difference or what do you mean by wireless deivces?

dub45

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

OK please pardon my unenlightened-self.....

Could you tell how I could do check my wireless channel Vs my neighbours? There are bluetooth wireless devices... keyboard and 2 mice, would this make a difference or what do you mean by wireless deivces?

You can enlighten yourself by reading or searching in the forum. If you expect people to help you it is surely not unreasonable to look around a bit first?

You can use a program called netstumbler (www.netstumbler.com) wireless devices include dect phones, tv senders....

Clareman08

I had this problem recently when I got a Netgear USB Wireless Adapter to link a Desktop PC to my Eircom Netopia router. The PC runs McAfee Total Protection antivirus - up to date and paid for! The Netgear software looked for the router WPA security key, followed by McAfee which also looked for the key. Like AIR-AUSSIE it worked fine, but kept dropping the connection every 10 mins or so. A separate laptop running Norton had no such problems.

SOLUTION: Disable Wireless Network Security in McAfee! Now the only problem is an annoying error message from McAfee telling me that I am not fully protected. Maybe McAfee's idea of network protection is to just cut you off. Crude but effective!

AIR-AUSSIE

Clareman08 wrote: »

I had this problem recently when I got a Netgear USB Wireless Adapter to link a Desktop PC to my Eircom Netopia router. The PC runs McAfee Total Protection antivirus - up to date and paid for! The Netgear software looked for the router WPA security key, followed by McAfee which also looked for the key. Like AIR-AUSSIE it worked fine, but kept dropping the connection every 10 mins or so. A separate laptop running Norton had no such problems.

SOLUTION: Disable Wireless Network Security in McAfee! Now the only problem is an annoying error message from McAfee telling me that I am not fully protected. Maybe McAfee's idea of network protection is to just cut you off. Crude but effective!

The laptop I'm using has no security program like McAfee running at the moment. So I don't think that can be my problem.

Thanks for the input though.

AIR-AUSSIE

Here are my line stats.
Line State Up Modulation DMT Data Path Interleave
Downstream Upstream Max Allowed Speed (kbps) 3072 384 SN Margin (dB) 26.00 8.50 Line Attenuation (dB) 30.50 17.00 CRC Errors 54 0

I've also installed Netstumbler. The attachment is off it running. There seems to be one other neighboring connection which uses the same channel as mine.

Lolabugs

Had the EXACT same problem with my Eircom broadband last week.
After three days of getting pissed off at the auld laptop i rang their support line. Had to disconnect and delete the inernet settings and re-install them. Works perfectly now.

*dont do this yourself unless you have your security password written down somehere*

DHFrame

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

Hi

I'm using my laptop about 20m away from the router.

20m!! Thats a good long distance from you're router. Is it in a middle of a field or in the Garden or something? I have a very good router a Netgear which is at most 4 to 5m away. And I have in a large house.

20m is too far for stock Eircom stuff. It might be worth investing in a better router.

Something like this if you have a cable internet connection http://www.netgear.co.uk/rangemax_wirelessrouter_wpn824.php
or something like this if you have Eircom BT kind of stuff the choice is here http://www.netgear.co.uk/home_wireless_broadband.php

Hope this helps!

bonnie_cash

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

Hi

I've Eircom Broadband with a netopia router. I'm using my laptop about 20m away from the router. The connection sometimes can drop every 10 or so minutes at the worst of times. I have changed to open DNS last night to see if that changes.

My wired connection with my desktop and laptop works fine without any dropping of connection.

So really I'm wondering what the problem could be.


Firstly could somebody tell me how to get my line stats please, so i can post it here?

Thanks in advance for any help.

My line kept dropping aswell and i only got it sorted last week. It happened to me every time the home phone would ring. (although it took me months to connect the 2 together). We have 3 phones connected in our house and i only had a dsl filter on 2 of them. Got one off my sister in law and since then no problem. Don;t know whether this is same problem for you but you'd never know.. I'm also with eircom and have a netopia router.

AIR-AUSSIE

bonnie_cash wrote: »

My line kept dropping aswell and i only got it sorted last week. It happened to me every time the home phone would ring. (although it took me months to connect the 2 together). We have 3 phones connected in our house and i only had a dsl filter on 2 of them. Got one off my sister in law and since then no problem. Don;t know whether this is same problem for you but you'd never know.. I'm also with eircom and have a netopia router.

I have filters on both phones in my house so don't think that could be it.

AIR-AUSSIE

DHFrame wrote: »

20m!! Thats a good long distance from you're router. Is it in a middle of a field or in the Garden or something? I have a very good router a Netgear which is at most 4 to 5m away. And I have in a large house.

20m is too far for stock Eircom stuff. It might be worth investing in a better router.

Hope this helps!

Yeah looking at that again, think I may have over estimated the length of my house. It'd be more like 8m max.

jor el

You say you get no connection drops on the wired connections, so your broadband must be fine. Line stats, filters, etc are meaningless, and will not be the problem.

Your problem is a crappy WiFi connection, and could be caused by any number of things. Maybe it's crappy WiFi, or distance, or interference, or crappy WiFi cards in the laptop/PC. Given that you are using the eircom supplied Netopia router, I'm going to go with; you have a crappy router.

Things to do:
Change the WiFi channel from the default to something else. Change the encryption from WEP to WPA-PSK. Change the router (last resort) for a better one.

Johnboy1951

Check other wireless devices in your location.
Things like Dect phones and other wireless devices can cause bad connection between your PC and your router.

Try changing the channel being used by the wireless in the router settings and test for a while to see if the problem persists.
I had to make such adjustments in the past so that everything worked without interfering with each other.

AIR-AUSSIE

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Check other wireless devices in your location.
Things like Dect phones and other wireless devices can cause bad connection between your PC and your router.

Try changing the channel being used by the wireless in the router settings and test for a while to see if the problem persists.
I had to make such adjustments in the past so that everything worked without interfering with each other.

Would changing channel mean I'd have to set up my laptop / PS3 again?
I'll have a go at it if it doesn't.


Also the laptop I'm using is five years old so most likely the wireless card is prob not up to scratch...