1

Environment

  • Laptop A (Windows Vista)
  • Laptop B (Windows 7)
  • Phone A (iOS)
  • Phone B (Android)
  • Phone C (Android)
  • Wireless 802.11 g/n 2.4GHz router (Billion 7800NL)

Problem

When Phone C enters the house and connects to the wireless LAN, Laptop B disconnects from the wireless network; Windows shows that it isn't connected to a wireless network at all. When this happens, all of the other devices stay connected and work normally.

Once when the laptop was connected while Phone C was already in the house, the problem happened again after a while of normal use.

Troubleshooting

  • Tried reconnecting to the network. Windows said it couldn't. Another time it did connect, but it said it had limited connectivity.
  • Tried restarting the laptop. This didn't help.
  • Tried restarting the router. This fixed the problem temporarily.
  • Ensured that the router was acting as a DHCP server and had enough IP addresses available.
  • Ensured that none of the laptops or phones were assigning themselves static IP addresses.
  • Tried moving the laptop close to the router. This didn't help.
  • Checked that the IPv4 addresses were unique.

Any ideas about what could be causing this? It sounds like it could be a problem with the laptop or the router.

Community
  • 1
Sam
  • 1,410
  • 1
  • 20
  • 33
  • Did you try restarting the phone? – CyterixTech Mar 07 '14 at 01:40
  • Are Laptop B and Phone C using the "n" wifi connection by any chance? I'm guessing laptop A and Phone A are not using "n" wireless connections. Is that true? – skub Mar 07 '14 at 01:53
  • @skub I just checked, and they're all using n. – Sam Mar 13 '14 at 04:11
  • @LM126, not that I remember. However, I actually have access to two different phones of the same model, and both of them cause the problem. – Sam Mar 13 '14 at 07:24

2 Answers2

0

Sounds like a they might be getting conflicting IP addresses or a bug in the routers software. You can try making sure they are getting different ip addresses or check to see if there are any updates available for your router.

levy
  • 166
  • 4
  • I was thinking it might be an address conflict, too. I checked that today, and they seem to be using unique router-assigned IPv4 addresses. – Sam Mar 08 '14 at 11:09
  • 1
    Crazy if you temporarily Assign a static ip to your laptop does it still disconnect when phone c comes in? I'm guessing it's a bug in the driver of the wifi card or a bug in the router. – levy Mar 08 '14 at 19:25
0

I found that there was an update for the wireless card driver available through Windows Update. After installing it, the problem no longer occurred, so I suspect it was a driver problem.

Sam
  • 1,410
  • 1
  • 20
  • 33