f13.net

So I live in a house subdivided into three apartments.  One of the other tenants pays for the broadband connection from the cable company, which he routes through a wireless router for everyone in the house to use in exchange for 10 bucks a month.  My desktop computer generally connects fine to the internet, despite the signal strength hoving around "very low" or "low" (as my desktop is in a far corner of the house).  When I do lose the connection to my desktop, I typically just have to fiddle with the antenna or move my case a few inches and it picks the signal up again and all is well.  However, my laptop is proving more difficult.  It typically shows the signal strength as "high" or "very high" (I use my laptop in other, more central regions of the house).  But, it consistently loses its internet access, despite its signal strength showing as being good.  It'll just start randomly stop accessing web sites.  I can't detect any rhyme or reason as to when it does this, and like I said, the signal strength is always good.

Anyway, any idea as to what's causing this?  Why would my laptop, which has a far stronger signal, randomly lose access to the internet, while my desktop has no problem as long as it has any signal at all?

Laptops suck balls? My laptop randomly loses connection CONSTANTLY on high and very high connections. My PSP and DS stay connected better... heh.

Do you have the same problem when using the laptop in the same room as the desktop?

Did you try updating your drivers for it?

You might also try finding a 'tweak' guide for broadband connections, see if anything in there is applicable to changes you can make for your wireless stuff. I think some wireless hardware implementations really suck suck suck and only work marginally .. but hopefully a driver upgrade would help. You might also reformat and reinstall Windows, but that's my cure-all.  :roll:

Yeah, I do usually use the laptop in the same room as the desktop, just not in the corner.

I'll try and update the drivers -- although I updated them fairly recently, and I'm doubtful that there's new ones since then.

Not going to format, heh.

I'm just curious as to what, in general, would cause a wireless device with a strong signal to be unable to reliably connect to the internet at all.

Interference.

Other devices on 2.4Ghz frequencies like cordless phones and/or neighbors with wireless transmitters.

Microwave ovens are one of those devices that operate at 2.4 GHz.