Erratic Router/Vista/Wireless Behaviour

[WoLFe]

The internet has been alot better for me since I increased the power levels in the control panel to HIGH PERFORMANCE and stopped the hard-drive shutting down after 20 minutes of being idle (I pushed it back to two days..)

As some of you may be aware, internet-related problems are stressful and unwanted. I am using exactly the same Sitecom Wireless Network Adapter (PCI Card Style) that I used on my old XP machine but with updated Vista 32bit Drivers and the CD that came with it installed for good measure. Vista handles the connection itself completly.

It's working at a good speed (I have a 3mb BT line, and on speed test I get around 2456kb or whatever downloads) and I am happy with that - but sometimes it just seems to randomly "cut out" and only local is available - this doesn't happen often now but the problem is erratic and unusual.

I have only had it a few times in the past few weeks, but it once happened when I left the PC for half an hour (might have been due to the power settings when this happened, not sure) - and when I was playing online game Day Of Defeat : Source). It also happened this morning when I booted the PC up.

It is an unusual problem because even though it says it's connected, it clearly isn't and it is "local only". Restarting the PC does nothing, once it happens I can't reconnect unless I turn the PC off and reset the router.

The router itself is a BT VOYAGER 2091 (or something like that). What makes me think it may not be the router is I never got this problem a few months back when I was still using the XP Machine, which I had used wirelessly for a few years with no cut outs.

Is this Vista's doing? Am I missing something? Has anyone heard of these problems?

Any advice is good, cheers.

Edit - before people tell me to go wired, consider this. I have an NFORCE WIRED NETWORK CONTROLLER and I have heard bad things about it with Vista. Not only that, if it worked on my old machine all the time why not now? I can't keep throwing money at this, the three other Wireless Network Adapters I bought were useless... Dlink and Netgear.

I would hate it if I had a phone line installed in here, possibly had to get a wired network card installed and this problem still appeared.

[WoLFe]

You won't believe this, a guy from BT came today (wrong address) and speeded up my line/removed corrosion then told me he had the wrong address, but if I was having "local" problems with my broadband I needed to phone them!

Maybe that will help stop the erratic disconnections. Either way it's gone from 2.3mb to a healthy 2.9.