Wireless connection goes on and off. Need urgent help!

[not_a_virus.exe]

I'm connected through a wireless connection and today it has randomly jumped on and off for unknown reasons. Out of nowhere today the computer icon on the bottom right of my taskbar disconnected with a little red X beside it. Then it reconnected with the popup ballon saying "wireless internet connection 2 (CABRAL) connected". And I'm thinking to myself, "what the hell is CABRAL?". And I didn't do anything at all.

I was talking to a friend of mine in between taking calls at the job I work at (I work from home), and it suddenly disconnected. And it would reconnect over the smallest and strangest things I would do to my computer. I might disconnect a separate connection and BOOM, working connection, then 5 or 10 minutes later it would disconnect again. Called up Rogers customer service and of course they didn't anything they had no clue what they were talking about. This is the strangest problem I've had with my computer and would not be surprised if none of you fine folks could help me with it.

[johnwill]

Well, with no information about the environment, we probably won't be able to help much.



Please supply the following info, exact make and models of the equipment please.

What country are you located in.
Name of your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
What is the expected Upstream/Downstream speed for your ISP Connection?
Make and exact model of the broadband modem.
Make and exact model of the router (if a separate unit).
Model numbers can usually be obtained from the label on the device.
Connection type, wired or wireless.
If wireless, encryption used, (none, WEP, WPA, or WPA2)
Make and model of your computer.
Version and patch level of Windows on all affected machines, i.e. XP-Home (or XP-Pro), SP1-SP2, Vista, etc.
The Internet Browser in use, IE, Firefox, Opera, etc.




Please give an exact description of your problem symptoms, including the exact text of any error messages.

If you're using a wireless connection, have you tried a direct connection with a cable to see if that changes the symptoms?

If there are other computers on the same network, are they experiencing the same issue, or do they function normally?




On any affected computer, I'd also like to see this:

Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD to open a command prompt:

Type the following commands:

PING 216.109.112.135

PING yahoo.com

NBTSTAT -n

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.

[not_a_virus.exe]

Originally Posted by johnwill

Well, with no information about the environment, we probably won't be able to help much.



Please supply the following info, exact make and models of the equipment please.

What country are you located in.
Name of your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
What is the expected Upstream/Downstream speed for your ISP Connection?
Make and exact model of the broadband modem.
Make and exact model of the router (if a separate unit).
Model numbers can usually be obtained from the label on the device.
Connection type, wired or wireless.
If wireless, encryption used, (none, WEP, WPA, or WPA2)
Make and model of your computer.
Version and patch level of Windows on all affected machines, i.e. XP-Home (or XP-Pro), SP1-SP2, Vista, etc.
The Internet Browser in use, IE, Firefox, Opera, etc.




Please give an exact description of your problem symptoms, including the exact text of any error messages.

If you're using a wireless connection, have you tried a direct connection with a cable to see if that changes the symptoms?

If there are other computers on the same network, are they experiencing the same issue, or do they function normally?




On any affected computer, I'd also like to see this:

Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD to open a command prompt:

Type the following commands:

PING 216.109.112.135

PING yahoo.com

NBTSTAT -n

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.

Country: Canada
ISP: Rogers High Speed Internet
Speed: Usually low to good (Now it's just low at startup then just dies)
Modem: Toshiba Cable Modem PCX2500
Router: Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router
Type: Wireless
Encryption: None
PC Model No: Hewlett Packard Pavilion a255C, DF281A-ABA a255c
Version/Patch: Windows XP-home edition, service pack 2
Internet Browser: Mozilla Firefox

When my system starts up, I am connected to the internet. The connection is usually low, but it's there. After about 5 - 10 minutes, the computer icon on my task bar will die with a red "X" beside it even though I may still be able to browse the internet. After maybe another 3 minutes give or take, the connection will die out completely. This can oddly be fixed for a short period of time if I play around with my connection settings for example: I will go into the data encryption tab, and turn it from "disabled" to "WEP" and I will be reconnected for a short period of time. Then it will die out again and I would change the encryption back to "disabled" and will again, be connected for a short period of time. There's 3 computers in my household. One of them is connected through an Ethernet cable, the other two are connected wirelessly. I'm using the second connection. First time this happened the baloon popped up beside the computer icon saying "Wireless network connection 2 (CABRAL) connected" then got disconnected saying "Wireless network connection 2 not connected". Again, sometimes even though it says I'm not connected, I will still be able to browse the internet for a short period of time, until it dies out completely. Then I would proceed to fiddle around with my connection settings just to boost to work.

Now I have not tried to used a wired connection. I'm not sure how I would go about doing that. I was told that I would have to get a completely new phone line installed with an extra $40.00/month tag to be connected through a cable.

None of the other computers are experiencing the same problem I am. This has lead me to believe that it might be a problem with my antenna. Maybe it's dying?

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

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>[font="Fixedsys"] PING 216.109.112.135
'[FONT' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>PING yahoo.com
Ping request could not find host yahoo.com. Please check the name and try again.


C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>NBTSTAT -n

Wireless Network Connection 2:
Node IpAddress: [0.0.0.0] Scope Id: []

No names in cache

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>IPCONFIG /ALL

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : your-o0kwkw9jwc
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 2:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Wireless-G PCI Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-41-62-35-D9

Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::ffff:ffff:fffd%5
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>

[johnwill]

The wired connection is simply using a $10 Ethernet cable to connect to one of the four Ethernet ports on the back of your router to the computer. I don't see any wired connection in your IPCONFIG, and since this machine has one in the standard configuration, I can only assume there's a problem there. I don't know who the idiot was that told you that you need a separate ISP account to connect a wired connection to your router, but I suggest not listening to him very closely.



Hold the Windows key and press R, then type devmgmt.msc

Please respond to all the following steps.

1. Under Network adapters, please tell me all the devices listed.
2. Are there any devices under Network adapters that have a red x displayed?
3. Also, are there any devices anywhere in the Device Manager display with yellow ? or ! displayed?

[not_a_virus.exe]

Originally Posted by johnwill

The wired connection is simply using a $10 Ethernet cable to connect to one of the four Ethernet ports on the back of your router to the computer. I don't see any wired connection in your IPCONFIG, and since this machine has one in the standard configuration, I can only assume there's a problem there. I don't know who the idiot was that told you that you need a separate ISP account to connect a wired connection to your router, but I suggest not listening to him very closely.



Hold the Windows key and press R, then type devmgmt.msc

Please respond to all the following steps.

1. Under Network adapters, please tell me all the devices listed.
2. Are there any devices under Network adapters that have a red x displayed?
3. Also, are there any devices anywhere in the Device Manager display with yellow ? or ! displayed?

No not a separate ISP, a separate phone line installed to connect the Ethernet cable to.

- 1394 Net Adapter
- Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC (this has a red X on the icon beside the name)
- Wireless-G PCI Adapter

And no to the yellow question mark/exclamation mark question.

[johnwill]

Phone line? Again, you don't need a separate phone line. You need an Ethernet cable between the existing router & Ethernet switch to the new computer. No phone lines involved.

Try right clicking on the Ethernet adapter and selecting Enable to clear the red "X".