Two laptops both drop WIFI at same time

slabbed11

Hello all,

This forum has been pretty helpful in the past for solving my tech problems so I'm hoping someone can help me out with this one.

My roommate and I have the same laptops, both Dell Inspiron 1545s. They both have the same wifi cards, Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card. However, neither of us can continually stay connected whenever we are using the wireless at the same time.

Usually it will happen like this, I am using the internet fine with no problems. Then he will come sit down on the couch next to mine (within 10ft), turn on his laptop and both of our connections will stop working. Usually windows will say I'm still connected but when I open Firefox it will just time out. After a few minutes windows will say No Internet Access. Usually to fix the problem we both turn our cards on and off (using the wireless button on the keyboard) until they finally connect. However this doesn't always work, so I have to go over to the router and push the button on the router than turns the wireless on and off. This usually fixes the problem.

So far I have determined that it is not the router because this is the second router we've tried it on. The first was a Link Sys and the second is a Netgear. Originally I thought the Link Sys was defective so I went and bought the Netgear. Whats weird is that the Netgear worked fine for about 2 weeks, then this same problem started happening again.

Also I'm not sure if the fact that were within 10ft of one another has anything to do with the problem because sometimes i'll be in my room (20ft down the hall) and the same problem will happen. However since we both usually use our laptops while watching tv, this seems to be where it happens the most.

Anyone have any ideas? Could the router be mixing up our signals? Should I try assigning static IP addresses?

Thanks in advance

Thrax

Try changing the wireless channel that the router uses to something else. If you're using Vista/7, I also highly recommend a program called "WLAN Optimizer."

Download WLAN Optimizer to some folder that will never be cleared/deleted, then check the following boxes on the "settings" tab:
Start with windows
Start minimized to tray
Disable background scan
Enable streaming mode

Press save, reboot the PC. Let the program run in the background 24/7.

slabbed11

I will download and run the WLAN optimizer. If I change the channel, say to channel 2, will I have tell my wireless card to connect to channel 2 in the settings or will it automatically find it?

Thrax

It's automagical.

kryyst

as an experiment instead of relying on the routers DHCP settings to pass out the correct information try manually putting in the information into each laptop - remembering that each needs to have a different IP address.

Tushon

Also, you may want to check if router has firmware upgrade, and if you have the latest drivers for the laptop wireless cards.

mirage

I think Thrax's suggestion will work. You can try channels 1, 6, and 11 for best performance.

You could also try reducing the transmit power of WiFi cards in the Device Manager -> Advanced driver properties.

slabbed11

Thanks for all the suggestions. For now running WLAN optimizer and switching to channel 1 seem to have fixed the problem. I have all the updated drivers installed and the updated firmware on the router. If it starts happening again I will try static IP addresses and decreasing the wifi transmit power.

Thanks again thrax, kryyst and mirage

slabbed11

Well it turns out that I am still having problems staying connected. I have determined that it has nothing to do with how close our laptops are to each other, the wireless will still be dropped. I have tried all channels on the router, I have tried assigning static IP addresses, all my drivers and firmware are up to date. Anyone have any other ideas?