wireless problems

[seedy]

I have friends who have a Netgear DG834GT wireless modem router serving BT Broadband to an old mish-mash of a Pentium III PC running Win XP Home and using a Netgear WG111v2 54 Mpbs Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter.
It also servers a Dell 600m Laptop with an intergrated Intel Pro Wireless 2200BG wireless card.

Now, ever since installation a few months ago, there have been connection problems. The Intel Pro connection indicator drops on the laptop to almost nil quite often, even though its located just in the next room and on the same house level as the router. The PC also suffers from connection issues from time to time also.

However, the main issue is email. Both systems use Outlook Express to connect to a mail server hosted by 'ThinkingFish' via 'pop3'.
Sometimes, the PC will not send mail out. Sometimes neither system will receive email or connect to the internet, until the router is switched off and restarted at the power socket. This happens as often as once per day, sometimes twice.

I've turned 'worm blocking' off on the copy of NAV2006 installed on the PC, I've ensured all systems have updated software, I've changed the router channel on more than one occasion, I've increased the MTU on the router to that recommended for BT Broadband, I've moved the router to different locations around the house and I've even tried connecting the laptop to a different router at a different physical location and it works perfectly with no signal loss.

I'm ready to contact Netgear now and claim the router is faulty but wanted to ask if anyone else has any suggestions to try before I do.

Any help greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[ultim8um]

Justs sounds like the router is crashing... Do you use P2P apps like a bit torrent client a lot? If so this could be causing the router to crash... Or it could be the firmware revision of the router needs checking / updating.

Anyway if reseting the router fixes the problem then at least you know it probably aint going to be anything to do with your pc's...

[seedy]

Justs sounds like the router is crashing... Do you use P2P apps like a bit torrent client a lot? If so this could be causing the router to crash... Or it could be the firmware revision of the router needs checking / updating.

Anyway if reseting the router fixes the problem then at least you know it probably aint going to be anything to do with your pc's...

No, there are no P2P clients installed on either machine.
Firmware on the router is the latest, as it is with all the related hardware.
Thanks.

[kalniel]

AFAIK this is just an issue with USB adaptors - I've never seen one work reliably.

You can try helping things by making sure your USB isn't set to power down when idle, and checking that you don't have too many devices off the same USB hub. Motherboard updates may help also.

[seedy]

AFAIK this is just an issue with USB adaptors - I've never seen one work reliably.

You can try helping things by making sure your USB isn't set to power down when idle, and checking that you don't have too many devices off the same USB hub. Motherboard updates may help also.

There are only two devices connected to the hub, but I'll check the power down setting. Although I'm pretty sure they're ok as the usb local netwrok printer doens't have any problems when the internet drops.

Thanks.