Possible Connection Problems

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Howdy all, requesting some help from the knowledgeable boffins of OcUK.

This problem mostly manifests when playing online games, particularly TF2 and basically results in a temporary (about 1 - 2 seconds) connection drop between my computer and the router. I have noticed this happening when downloading large files as well on my samurize network monitor thingymajiggy. Also, while sitting here at my dads computer I've noticed that windows is regularly showing the network connection baloon in the bottom right hand corner stating that windows is now connected to network x, further making me believe there could be a problem with the router dropping the network connection momentarily.

The hardware being used:

1 x Standard Eircom Netopia Router 2247-02 with software version
7.8.0r2

1 x Linksys WUSB54GSC USB wireless network adapter

1 x Computer running Vista/XP

Now, the obvious thing to try to either eliminate or confirm the wireless from the potential problem list would be to connect via CAT5 to the router,unfortunately this is not an option even though I spent ages setting up a wire from my room to the router . Unfortunately my computer has this thing where the Gigabit LAN Controller Gigabit LAN Controller (Marvell 8056) just won't play along with the SATA controller causing massive problems during standard usage.

Also, there is normally one other computer connecting via wireless to the router using a Belkin F5D7050 but I don't think it's having an effect mainly because I disconnected it one night to seee but there was no difference.

I was wondering if anybody here might have had similar problems or might know where the root of my problem lies and could possibly reccomend remedial action?

Thanks in advance,
Antar.

 

[tolien]

Without knowing whether it's the wireless, the router generally or something else you're guessing without the slightest clue.

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Ah, someone over in the PC Games sub-forum has pointed me in the direction of a small app which stops windows from constantly searching for new devices on the wireless connection. This has completely solved the problem.

 

[tolien]

Disabling Wireless Zero Config and using another app to handle your wireless?

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Nope, another forumite called hangtime recommended the use of this little program here:

http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/

which sorted out all the problems. Was playing TF2 for about two hours last night (instead of studying ) with no lag spikes at all. Didn't improve my kill to death ratio much though.

 

[tolien]

Which does what I said...

 

[HangTime]

^that's what I used to do under XP (no need for 3rd party app, just driverset apps), the problem I had with Vista was that simply disabling the WLAN Autoconfig service seemed to stop my wireless working altogether. I did make a batch file to toggle it via 'netsh wlan' but this app seems a bit cleaner.

 

[tolien]

If you disabled the service, you'd need to use some other app to manage the connection.