O2 Wireless issue

[Little-Miss]

Right. My friend has had her O2 ASDL wireless for 2 years without any problem. Suddenly in the last week she's been losing signal to her laptop regulary. It got to a point where she had pretty much no connection at all.

 

I went round, tried all the usual, but could not get the thing to connect properly. In the end i left her connected with an Ethernet cable and suggested she rang them and maybe they would send her a new router, which they did.

 

After setting it up she has had exactly the same problem. Is there anything else i can suggest she does?

 

She has promises me nothing has changed. What makes it stranger is that she has an Ipod Touch which most of the time has no problem connecting, take her laptop elsewhere and thats fine too!! MY HEAD HURTS!

[Michael]

It sounds to me your friend is using O2 ADSL and is connecting wirelessly to her router? The fact also that the laptop works fine using an ethernet connection and works fine elsewhere would point directly to a wireless problem.

 

In my experience these days, it's fairly common to find many home wireless setups very close together and sometimes neighbours are using the same ISP through recommendation. The problem being ISPs setup their routers exactly the same, including the wireless channel. The most common is channel 6, so try changing this to 1 or 11. Avoid using channel 13 if it's available as not all adapters support it.

[FN-GM]

It might be the wireless in the laptop if the iPod is fine.

 

Odd question but does she have cordless phones?

[Little-Miss]

Oddly enough she does, but she's had it longer then the internet. The only thing i can think is someone is using the same channel...

 

Thing was her phone died around the same time as the problems began so i did query the phoneline but thats fine...but it was just the handset.

[somabc]

It sounds to me your friend is using O2 ADSL and is connecting wirelessly to her router? The fact also that the laptop works fine using an ethernet connection and works fine elsewhere would point directly to a wireless problem.

 

In my experience these days, it's fairly common to find many home wireless setups very close together and sometimes neighbours are using the same ISP through recommendation. The problem being ISPs setup their routers exactly the same, including the wireless channel. The most common is channel 6, so try changing this to 1 or 11. Avoid using channel 13 if it's available as not all adapters support it.

 

This should not cause too much of a problem. I am using O2 wireless to my laptop and I can pickup 20 nearby access points!

[Little-Miss]

any ideas guys?

[FN-GM]

I had issues with the cordless phone, when you used it the WIFI broke. But if its worked fine for all this time it should be fine. If the iPod is fine i would say its the wireless card in the laptop

[Michael]

This should not cause too much of a problem. I am using O2 wireless to my laptop and I can pickup 20 nearby access points!

 

This is possible, but as well all know, two access points using the same channel which are closely located will create problems. Mobile phones and microwaves can create problems too.

[difinity]

You could try updating the wireless drivers in the laptop.

 

I've had connection problems with older drivers for the Intel wireless cards.

[pscott]

Video Senders can also cause problems!

[OutToLunch]

Two things I'd check -

 

Recent Windows Update if set to automatic - anything related to networking/connectivity (or anything at all the way MS usually botches one patch inside another!)

 

Take your own laptop round and see how well the wireless works for you. If it's trouble free, assume it's her laptop that's playing up. If it messes you around - assume it's the router. Use a handy diagnostic app on your laptop like Netstumbler to see what other APs are around and what channel they're on.

[Jamo]

Sometimes it can just be a quality of signal problem, had to change one to an N class router once with adapter becuase the signal quality, although strong, was very intermittent. Channel would be the first thing I would try, after that I think the suggestions here are all there is.

[HodgeHi]

download netstumber and scan the surrounding area. It should show you all the surrounding wireless networks and also the channels that each are on and the proximity of the network too. This is perhaps the best way to find out what's going on from a wireless point of view.

 

Also when 802.11n came out, apparently the strength of the signal would if it was close enough would over-power 802.11g networks