Wireless Tips - Does your wireless router keep disconnecting or dropping the connection?

Posted on March 31, 2007 at 10:54 am

Make sure to read other posts from the Wireless Tips series!

  1. How to connect two computers or laptops wirelessly
  2. How to wirelessly access USB devices using a network USB hub
  3. How to disable service set identifier (SSID) broadcasting on your wireless router
  4. How to troubleshoot your Windows XP wireless network connection problems
  5. Wireless Tips - Does your wireless router keep disconnecting or dropping the connection?

I’ve had a Netgear wireless router for about a year now and it’s been pretty good until a couple of weeks back all of sudden my wireless connection kept dropping or I could not connect to the router unless I restarted the router! It was a royal pain in the butt, but because I’m lazy I didn’t get around to fixing it earlier! If you’re in the same situation, here’s what you can do to fix the problem!

The issue is usually caused by one of two things: the driver for your wireless card or the firmware version on your router (basically the driver for the router). I have found that unless you’re using a really old wireless router, it’s more than likely an old driver for your wireless card that is the culprit. So you have to update the wireless card. How do we do that?

First, you’ll need to go to the web site for the manufacturer of your computer: Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc and go to their support or driver downloads page. Here I’ve tried to get the direct links to those pages for the most common computers:

Dell - http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen

HP - http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html?pageDisplay=drivers

Toshiba - http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_modSel.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1730958392.1175360582@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjaddkigemfeecgfkceghdgngdgmm.0

Sony - http://esupport.sony.com/perl/select-system.pl?PRODTYPE=1,24,26,66,9,70,5,72

Select your system or type it in and find the latest driver for you wirless card. There is usally a section called Networking and underneath you should see a list of drivers. One of them should have the word “Wireless” in it. If you have more than one wireless driver, then you need to figure out which one you have installed on your computer.

You can determine the model number for your wireless card by pressing the Windows key + the Pause button at the same time. This brings up the System Properties dialog. Another way to get to it is to right click on My Computer and select Properties. Once there, click on the Hardware tab.

You’ll see a list of devices with plus signs to the left of them. Click on the one called “Network Adapters” and there will be an entry for your wireless card as shown below:

Now download that driver from the list off the manufactuer’s web site. Usually the wireless card is called something “Intel Pro Wirelss” or “Dell Wireless”, etc. Once you download the file to your desktop, double click on it and follow the steps to install. You might have to restart your computer.

Now you should find that the number of times the connection drops or disconnects is very low. Once I updated my driver, I haven’t disconnected once! Let me know if I can make this better or if it didn’t work!

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2 Responses to “Wireless Tips - Does your wireless router keep disconnecting or dropping the connection?”

  1. Beckey said on : April 11th, 2008 at 4:32 am

    Still having the same dropping problem, and using the latest driver for my usb wireless network adapter. Any other suggestions??


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  1. How to troubleshoot your Windows XP wireless network connection problems Says:

    [...] and install the latest firmware for the router. You can read a previous article I had written about updating drivers for your wireless card if the connection is [...]

    July 31st, 2007 at 2:44 pm
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