Dropping wifi connection

[John30072]

I got a new pavilion dm4 with windows 7in April, and I had no problems with connecting to the Internet untill a month or so ago. When I start the computer and it connects to my wifi, the connection will work for anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. After that my computer seems to have dropped the Internet cOnnection, but it says that I still have a connection in the network panel. When I try to load a web page, it freezes up or something, because nothing happens and it eventually tells me I'm not connected to the Internet, even though it says I still have a signal. I have to restart my computer, then I will get maybe another 10 minutes and it happens again. I'm pretty sure it's not the router because my Mac has no problem with the connection. Any ideas on what's wrong would be appreciated.

 

[chev65]

If you can download the Xirrus WiFi inspector and post the screen shot of the results here it would be helpful.

Wi-Fi Inspector | Xirrus

 

[John30072]

my network is the top emerald willow connection

This is when it works normally...

 

[John30072]

and when its not working nothing changes but when i run the connection test, it freezes like this

 

[IanDrexP]

Are you assigning your DNS manually or is it automatic?

 

[John30072]

I think its automatic

 

[IanDrexP]

Scan your system for viruses (Update your scanner first) using your preferred anti-malware software or I suggest getting Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.62 - FileHippo.com

 

[John30072]

I ran full system scans using both norton and malawarebytes, but neither of them found anything

 

[John30072]

I've been checking my connection and I think the problem is my DNS lookup, but it is set to automatic already so how should I reconfigure it to work?

 

[mrhiab]

Start>Control Panel>Network and Internet>Network and Sharing center on left hand side change adapter settings right click Local Area Connection select properties double click IPV 4 Use the following DNS server Addresses

 

[John30072]

Thanks I'll try that

 

[chev65]

The most likely reason for the dropped connection is that you are using the same channel as your neighbor.

John, you will want to go into your routers settings and change the channel to 11. You can change the DNS server to Google while you are there, try using 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 , it's just as easy to type the DNS servers into your routers setting for DNS.

After that give it some time and see if the connection is any better.

 

[John30072]

How would I change the routers settings

 

[chev65]

How would I change the routers settings

You just need the default gateway from the router and type it into the URL on your browser.

You can get all that info by typing ipconfig/all into an elevated command prompt.

 

[John30072]

I changed the DNS settings, restarted my computer, but that didn't help, I still lost the connection after a few minutes, an I couldn't find any setting for changing the channel for the router.

 

[chev65]

I changed the DNS settings, restarted my computer, but that didn't help, I still lost the connection after a few minutes, an I couldn't find any setting for changing the channel for the router.

The settings for changing the channel are there somewhere but the interface is different for every router.

It should be on the wireless set up page, channel overlap is the most likely cause of this problem.

In fact your connection looks very solid other than the obvious channel overlap problem.

 

[John30072]

I tried going through all the channels, none of them made a difference. I also noticed when I wa at a hotel over the weekend and using the Internet I was having the same problem.

 

[chev65]

I tried going through all the channels, none of them made a difference. I also noticed when I wa at a hotel over the weekend and using the Internet I was having the same problem.

The other more obvious problem that I see in your Xirrus read out is that you have two connections showing and one of them is open and not secured properly for some reason?

It looks like the same network with the same SSID, same channel but it's open instead of secured.

This open network invites hackers right into your network which is most likely part of the problem.

 

[John30072]

That's the guest account for my system, when i first set up the router it automatically created it and i couldn't figure out how to get rid of it untill a couple of days ago when I went into the router setup page to change the channels. I disabled it, and it shouldn't cause a security problem anymore. Whether or not that fixes the problem I'm having with my connection I'll have to wait a while and monitor it to see what happens.

 

[chev65]

That's the guest account for my system, when i first set up the router it automatically created it and i couldn't figure out how to get rid of it untill a couple of days ago when I went into the router setup page to change the channels. I disabled it, and it shouldn't cause a security problem anymore. Whether or not that fixes the problem I'm having with my connection I'll have to wait a while and monitor it to see what happens.

If that isn't the problem you might try starting in safe mode with networking in order to determine if the problem is caused by an installed program.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/69585-safe-mode.html