Wireless Enigma

[Brocktree]

Thank you for reading my post,

6 months ago I had a wireless network set up at my work place. This wireless network connected to an access point, and from there we connected to the internet. However, over the last 6 months, the connection has been from moderately ok to very unstable. There are long periods of outages during which none of my co-workers are able to access the internet... The most recent lasting over 48 hours. The LAN Wireless connection is fine, it tells me I am connected and that the signal strength is good. I brought my ISP manager out here and he was unable to fix the problem and is at a loss of what to do. I'm considering unsubscribing from the service but I do not want to go back to my ancient dial-up.

This brings me to my question. Is this problem a hardware malfunction, or is this a possible software or router error. I talked to my ISP manager and he replaced all of the equipment (router, bridge, etc.) and now our connection is fast but only works for about 30 seconds and then goes down for a minute, back on for 30 seconds, down for a minute, you get the drift. I'm really at a loss of what to do, I have some technical knowledge but I am unable to diagnose the source of this problem.

The ISP thought it was the bridge, I thought it was the router, we replaced both and it is still broken. Thank you again for reading this through and hopefully this goes down before my 30 second window is done. If you need any more information just ask.

We are using Linksys router, and a Cisco Bridge.

edit: It has all the usual symptoms of a DNS issue (lagging on the entry of a http address into the browser) but the ISP assured me that wasn't the problem, as he services 1600 other people without problems.

also here is my ipconfig info

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : DAVID
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Cisco Systems 340 Series Wireless LA
N Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-40-96-29-EB-28
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.105
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 64.246.104.1
64.246.104.2
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Monday, July 17, 2006 9:12:33 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:12:33 PM

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

[laboye]

In my opinion, this is a router problem. I have observed other Linksys routers/APs with this problem, but none so pronounced (48 hours). Try connecting a computer directly to the router and directly to the bridge and see if they have Internet access.

[Brocktree]

Ok, the internet is working at the moment I will wait until it goes down again before I try your theory. Thank you for your response!

I'll let you know what happens.