Problem reconnecting to network after resume from standby

[scampo]

Hi - can anyone here help, please? I've spend so l-o-n-g with this problem.

I have Virgin Media 2mb bb. The Virgin modem is wired to a US Robotics 5461 wi-fi router. One LAN is wired to a PC, another PC and this laptop use wi-fi. The problem is when the laptop resumes from standby or hibernation. 50% of the time or more it fails to find an IP Address for a variable amount of time (several minutes) with the small icon in the address bar showing the 'orbiting' yellow blob while it tries to connect. Sometimes, after a while, it will connect on its own, sometimes I have to repair or disconnect and reconnect and eventually a connection is made and all is well.

If I switch off the laptop, it finds an address immediately but not always from standby.

Yesterday I had a brain wave and switched off "Auto" in the TCP/IP setting and assigned a manual IP Address. Lo and behold - problems solved. Until last night and this morning when two things happened: a) some of the time the Internet ran at half speed and b) and finally, an "IP conflict" error occurred (and this happened on my son's PC at the same time). I switched back to auto and all is well.

My question is - do I have to manually assign all three PCs IP addresses or does it have to be "Auto"? Also, do I have to leave the router on DCHP to auto assign IP addresses?

Phew - sorry this is a bit long and not well explained. I hope someone out there knows what I'm trying to explain and has the answer!

Thanks!

[MovedGoalPosts]

If you assign a manual address on a computer, you need to ensure the router won't be trying to auto allocate that to another device. Look in the router's admin panel settings for a means to exclude the IP from allocation. Sometimes that can be as simple as using something in the early numbers i.e. 192.168.1.50-75 instead of the default range it issues 192.168.1 100+ (your IP range may be different, that's an example).

Wireless is a funny thing with no easy answers. Have a look and see that your lappy's wireless and other drivers are current versions (manufacturer rather than Microsoft generic are usually better). You might also want to see that the router's firmware is a latest version.

[scampo]

Thanks - I've updated all drivers. I'm now working on it with a new manually assigned address above any that are usually allocated (192.168.2.8) and it seems okay. I'll have a look at the router settings but I'm not sure I can exclude IP addresses. The option to disable DCHP is there but I don't know if that would be effective or wise (presumably I'd have to assign all the three computers an address then).

[jem]

Originally Posted by scampo

Thanks - I've updated all drivers. I'm now working on it with a new manually assigned address above any that are usually allocated (192.168.2.8) and it seems okay. I'll have a look at the router settings but I'm not sure I can exclude IP addresses. The option to disable DCHP is there but I don't know if that would be effective or wise (presumably I'd have to assign all the three computers an address then).

As Rob says, wireless can sometimes be a bit of a black art. What appears to be happening in your case is that the wireless card hardware is not properly resuming from sleep. Windows wakes up and assumes the card is working and connected, finds that it isn't, tries to get a new IP address, fails, waits a while and tries again, etc. etc. which is why the problem is a bit intermittent.

Go through the DHCP settings on the router. If you do have to disable DHCP completely then yes you will need to set static IP addresses on each PC. See if you can find a setting for assigned IP address range. Most routers out-of-the-box set themselves up as 192.168.1.254 (or similar) and start giving out address in the range 192.168.1.1.to 1.253. See if it's possible to manually set the range to be say 192.168.1.10 to 1.30. In this way you can manually set your laptop to be .9 (or anything less than 10) and all the remaining PCs will automatically get addresses between .10 and .30.

Depending on the router firmware you sometimes need to set a start and end address or a start address and number of assigned leases i.e. 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.30 or start at 192.168.1.10 and assign 10 or 20 (or in this case 21) addresses.