Desperately Seeking Help Regarding Wi-Fi Network...
 

Alrighty folks, I am going to attempt to be rational in this post, but my pile of shit everything is really pissing me off right now.

Here's the deal...

I have Roadrunner as my ISP. I live with two other guys, and all three of us have computers. I have a wireless card, as does one of the other guys - the last fellow just has the modem and the wireless router in his room.

It seems that I very, very, very often lose connection to the internet, especially while attempting to play a game - regardless of their current use, so I don't think it is related to bandwidth. Sometimes I lose it for a few moments, sometimes for much, much longer. It especially is a problem because it boots me from most games before it reconnects.

As far as my Network settings go, I have all kinds of connection that I have no idea what they are for... I am also unfamiliar with the difference it makes when a connection is "bridged".

Anyway, I have my wireless connection, a network bridge, two 1394 connections (both bridged) and a LAN connection. For whatever reason, I am unable to disable either one of the 1394 connections.

I originally thought that it might be a problem with the signal strength, but it typically hovers around excellent, sometimes dropping down to "very good" - and I will drop the connection regardless of the current status of it.

Sorry, it's a bit late (early?) and I have yet to sleep - hopefully someone can help me out before I start an inferno on my desk.

If you have any questions, please let me know!

(For instance, I have lost and regained the connection 4 times while typing this, and waiting right now to get it back before I can post...

Oh, I might as well add that I downloaded a different network manager as well, as a friend of mine continually dropped his connection having windows manage it. But, it didn't help...

Well, I'm not a WiFi Guru, but I had a similar experience of constantly dropping connections. It turned out my software firewall wasn't correctly configured, and would block my router after a while. That's all I got I'm afraid.

I was told this is a typical feature of using a wireless network and is a result of other frequencies interfering with your signals e.g. cell phones, microwaves...list goes on.

Always seems to happen to me when my roommate's cell goes off.

Not a chance, I use wireless internet and all of my family use cell phone, microwave, etc and yet, I don't lose the connection.

Is it broadband cable? Sometimes you need a filter on the cable line if it's used for cable television also. Thats what my "cut in and out problem" was due to. None of my connections are bridged either. Try this site: http://www.practicallynetworked.com/

I don't know based on this information... but you don't need a bridged network with a wireless router (I don't even know what a bridged network really is).

Router guy should have the modem plugged into the router plugged into his computer. Everyone else should just have their wifi cards active and connecting to the router. You don't need any special network settings for that. Chances are, your wifi card came with a card manager that's more intuitive than the windows one. Just use that.

Is anyone else dropping signals?

What kind of Wireless Router is it?

A couple of definitions that my clear up some confusion:

1394 - as in IEEE 1394, it's what PC's call Firewire, it's the number assigned to the protocol to ensure compatibility and basic function requirements. 1394 is capable of linking multiple computers together and therefore if your motherboard has Firewire it shows up in your available connections whether you're using it or not.

Bridged - This was a Microsoft idea that if you ask me was a REALLY bad one. The idea is to take multiple hardware adapters and link through a virtual "software" adapter, bridging is usually a very bad idea and disabling it would be the first option in my book, it isolates a lot of networking problems in my experience and the monitoring of multiple networking capabilities can create problems.

Ok, here's my try at this:

First of all disable all bridges, delete them what ever.
Secondly look at this thread: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=87904 I had the same problem and I solved it by buying an antenna extension. We could use some more info i.e. OS and also what are your routers and nics? 802.11b or g?

Right click on your wireless connection and look at the Authentication tab. If "Enable IEEE 802.1x authentication for this network" is checked, uncheck it and see if that helps.