Windows 7: DSL Router on the fritze (casual topic)

I was at a friend's house this weekend, and he was having some trouble with his wireless DSL router. The SSID would would show up on the list of available networks, but as soon as people started trying to connect, it would disappear completely.

We were busy with more pressing issues (Pathfinder), but I did pause long enough to reset the device. No improvement, connection would show up and then disappear as people tried to connect.

So what do y'all think? I've never run across this kind of thing personally. What could have been the issue? I halfway suspect the guy of sabotaging the connection himself, if only to keep us all focused on the game and off of the internet. I just don't know how he might have done it.


Note: don't have any specs, not looking for a real fix. This was a neat problem and I'm just curious what y'all might have to say.

It could have simply been a failing router, otherwise it could have been a Denial of Service attack, but thats not at all likely. FYI, DoS attacks involve flooding the network to disrupt service.

Failing router seems more likely, but a DoS attack is infinitely more interesting.