Problems with home network

[bamboo_curtain]

I've been having some trouble with my network at home lately. My housemates computer keeps randomly disconnecting and refusing to find a new connection. It stays up for a few minutes, then down, then up and then down.

I figure it's her router as my computer has had no problems staying connected, nor has my other roommate's laptop, even when he's in the same room as the faulty computer. So I figure it has to be the adapter she has (Belkin). Our router is netgear and I have a netgear adapter as well. When she first got the belkin it worked for a few weeks and the disconnects were not as bad, but steadily got worse. She tried to download some belkin upgrades from their site, but can't even stay connected long enough to get them to finish.

We're all running WinXP if that makes a difference.

I've tried to troubleshoot her problem, but all the solutions I would've tried failed to work and I'm out of ideas.

Any help?

 

[TerryNet]

What service pack level? She should be using the latest driver for the wireless adapter.

What wireless utility is she using? There should be no other one running, because multiple wireless utilities often results in this exact symptom.

 

[bamboo_curtain]

service pack version 2, that's part of the problem, she can't connect long enough to download the next driver.

Belkin.

 

[TerryNet]

Think you could do her a favor--download the driver and give it to her on a USB flash drive, CD-RW, floppy or other removable media?

If that one-word paragraph is the wireless utility make sure WZC is not running: Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Services - Wireless Zero Configuration should have Startup Type 'disabled' and should not be running.

 

[bamboo_curtain]

Did both of those to no luck.

We've yet to try taking my adapter and plugging it into her computer. Going to try that tomorrow, but any more suggestions are more than welcome.

 

[TerryNet]

If it's a USB adapter it may be drawing too much power and being powered down frequently. It's easy to determine if that is happening when you're looking for it--or listening because you hear the "goodbye USB" tone frequently.