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After a DSL technician installed a new router/wireless access point, I started having serious problems with my wireless connection on my PC.

To diagnose, I used a tool called "Colasoft ping tool" to monitor the wireless connectivity. The results with the windows ping tool are similar.

At the bottom of this post, you can view the monitoring results of both my laptop and my PC.

These devices:

  • Are positioned next to each other
  • Have "excellent" WiFi signal strength
  • Have been working correctly for years in this exact same setup

The WiFi access point is broadcasting at channel 11 (switching channels makes no difference). I used the tool "inSSIDer" to check the channels. None of them are occupied, except those of the WiFi network I connect to. The amplitude of this network is -50/-55dB.

I measured some bad pings with my laptop, but it's nothing compared to the connection drops and timeouts I get on my PC. This doesn't happen 100% of the time. Sometimes the connection is more or less normal, and then it's screwed up again. There's no pattern.

The PC connects to the wireless network using a SiteCom USB Adapter 54g WL-608. This is the router/wireless access point: Belgacom B Box

I can provide the config of my wireless network adapter and the WiFi config of the router if necessary.

Ping results of my laptop and PC:

enter image description here

It would be great if someone could point me in the right direction to solving this problem.

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1 Answer 1

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Try changing the channel that your wireless operates on (Should be in the range from 1 to 11). If a channel becomes overcrowded, it can show that you have great signal strength, but still drop packets because of congestion. This congestion can come from other routers that your neighbors have as well; remember everyone shares the same airwaves.

This lifehacker article lists some good utilities to help find empty channels, such as Meraki Wi-Fi Stumbler(Web), inSSIDer(Windows), iStumbler(Mac), and WiFi Analyzer (Android). There are also a number of good tips on how to increase your WiFi coverage in general.

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  • Channel 11 is normally the best.
    – harrymc
    Commented Oct 9, 2010 at 17:29
  • Thanks. I used inSSIDer to check the channels... The only channels that are occupied are those used by my WiFi network (channels 9 to 13, I selected 11 in the settings as suggested). The amplitude of the signal is between -55 and -50. I still have the same problem, no matter which channel I select.
    – Bram De Moor
    Commented Oct 9, 2010 at 21:48
  • @Bram Check the windows event log. I had a wireless nic a while back that had bad firmware, and would restart itself every 5-10 minutes.
    – Darth Android
    Commented Oct 9, 2010 at 21:57
  • Ok, for some reason, I didn't have the problem a single time yesterday, while using the internet all day. I'll just keep monitoring everything in the following days and update my question if I run into something. Thanks for the event log suggestion, I didn't think about that and it could be in the right direction
    – Bram De Moor
    Commented Oct 11, 2010 at 8:08

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