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Weird: internet connection drops LAN stays up.

Hi there and thanks for reading. My config (part of):

- Desktop PC with LAN connection to router. Router connects to ISP.

- Same desktop has USB wireless connection stick

- the wireless connection is bridged (with XP bridge) to the wired connection to the router

- My laptop (Dell Latitude D600) also has a wireless adapter, built-in (Intel Pro)

- 802.11 authentication is disabled for the wireless connections

- Both machines have XP Pro SP2, both drivers of the wireless devices are the latest (signed)

What happens is:

- when I connect through the wireless connection on my laptop to the desktop (with the wired connections not connected) at regular intervals (abt 5-10 minutes) the internet connection drops.

- while the internet connection is down, the LAN connection between the two remains, because I can still transfer files between them

- I still can ping the desktop but CANNOT ping the router (192.168.0.1) anymore

- after some minutes the internet connection restores and continues to work again, and everything can be pinged again

- then it goes down again (after 5-10 minutes) etc

Who can clear my sky, please ????

Thanks a lot !

Kees (the Netherlands)

Reply to
Kees
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"Kees" hath wroth:

Nice description. The only thing your missing is the maker and model number of the router in question. 192.168.0.1 would make it a Dlink or Netgear.

Was this working before, or is this a newly setup system?

Normally, I would suggest that you have 802.1x authentication enabled but no RADIUS server. The client re-authenticates every 10 minutes, fails, and disconnects. However, that was fixed in XP SP2 so that's improbable. Check the 802.1x settings anyway. If you're using WPA or WPA2 encryption, 802.1x must be enabled. Incidentally, try running it without encryption for a while and see if the problem disappears. That won't solve the problem but might identify the culprit.

Are you SURE you have the latest Intel Proset drives and utilities? I much prefer to use Proset instead of Windoze Wireless Zero Config. |

formatting link
's probably not the problem but a good idea anyway.

By "LAN connection" do you mean the wired ethernet connection? Are you simultaneously connected via wired and wireless to the same router? Is the desktop connected via a wired or wireless connection? If wireless, does the desktop also loose the connection to the router? Please give some clue as to how things are arranged.

OK, so you don't also have a wired connection. If the "LAN connection" to the desktop is via wireless only, then the only way that can happen is that your wireless router is acting weird. Any chance you have both an infrastructure connection to the access point and an ad-hoc connection to the desktop in the network setup?

Another possibility is that you have RIP or RIP2 running on the router or desktop, which might cause the default route to change as the connection goes up and down. Run: Start -> Run -> cmd route print and look at the line at the bottom for default gateway. See if it (or anything else) changes when the system goes down.

Holdit. You said you can't ping the router and now you're using the internet connection as a test. Stay with pinging 192.168.0.1 coming and going. Your internet service provider could be going up and down causing the problem. How long does it take to recover pinging the router? Never mind the internet for now.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

"Kees" hath wroth:

Let's try again.

OK. Desktop is wired to the router.

Not ok. Desktop also has a wireless connection to the same router.

Why do you go THROUGH the desktop to get to the router?

Do you have a peer to peer connection betweent the laptop and the USB dongle on the desktop, and then bridged to the ethernet connection to the router? If so, then when the ethernet connection between the desktop and the router is lost, you'll have exactly the symptoms you describe. Same when the desktop goes to sleep and breaks the bridge.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for reacting. The connection from the desktop to the router is wired. So it's a wired router to the desktop. The make and model is Sitecom DC-202. And it's anew setup. WEP is enabled for the wireless connection. It is certanly NOT the ISP that's going down, this can still be accessed through the desktop.

Cheers

Kees

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

formatting link
That's probably not the problem but a good idea anyway.

Reply to
Kees

Hi Jeff!

I understand what you describe. But when the wireless is replaced by a wired connection, so the laptop is connected through wire with the desktop, and that is also bridged, it works OK. So all that I want to use is the laptop with the internet wireless, instead of wired wo the desktop what I use when the laptop is "docked".

Then the connections stay up, with wireless only the internet goes down.

So what's the differenced, that's the question :-))

Cheerio

Kees

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Reply to
Kees

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