Ok, here is the situation: One wireless laptop (XP Home), the rest of the workstations are wired. Brand new Linksys WRT54G router and Linksys Wireless G Network card. Very very simple set up that I have done dozens of times before. The signal at the wireless user's desk is excellent.
However, when the laptop user logs on to AOL, he will often (sometimes as much as every 5-10 minutes throughout the day) get disconnected, then reconnected immediately afterward. Also, from what he says, after the first drop, the networked version of Quickbooks stops working. I am assuming that this is because he has lost the connection to the Quickbooks host on the local network. The other users seem to have no problem with connection stability. Another user uses AOL and they are all on AIM, and the connection doesn't drop for them.
However, when I brought the laptop to my house, it stayed c connected to my wireless network indefinetly, with no droppage problems whatsoever, for over 5 hours. I have also done all the tricks that have worked in the past: disabled the XP firewall, uninstalled and reinstalled all the networking devices (I haven't yet found a way to uninstall and reinstall the TCP/IP stack in XP.)
One last symptom: I recently replaced the old Wireless B Linksys router with the WRT54G, as the old router seemed to have stopped broadcasting any signal at all. The laptop picked up on 2 other wireless networks nearby, but I couldn't find the SSID that theirs was supposed to be broadcasting. I knew I was going to upgrade them to G anyway, so instead of going through any major troubleshooting procedures I replaces the router and network card. I don't know if this problem is related, although it seems like it might be.
Anyway, any suggestions on what else I might try? They have a wireless Panasonic phone system set up in their office. Could this be causing the interference? I tend to think not, as things were running fine with the wireless network for months before. Could there be something else in the building that is causing the drops that I should look for?
Thanks,
Ryan