Constant Internet Failing

[ColinM]

Hey Everybody,

I'm having a lot of problems with my internet connection, and I was hoping that I may be able to find some help. Here's the situation.

In the past several months, my internet crashes constantly, though I'm not even sure that I could call it crashing. I'll be surfing the web fine, and suddenly my Airport Connection drops to 2 bars from three. From there it is impossible to do anything with the internet, and it states in the network settings I'm using a self assigned IP address.

I'm not sure if this is the issue or not, but my family is using a very old Aiport Base Station. It's the snow model from 2001, and it works perfect on my sister's G4 Desktop, she get's 100% signal according to iStumbler. While I'm just across the hall, getting barely 25%. I'm using an iMac G5 w/ Leopard.

Another cause might be that I'm using an Airport Extreme Card, and I don't believe that she is. She can support up to b, and I can support up to g. We're getting either a Time Capsule or Extreme sometime this Summer, so if it's just the base station, then I guess we'll need to get one more quickly.

I change the channel on the base station very often, and also have interference robustness set.

Does anybody have any ideas how to fix this? It's really stressing me out.

 

[MisterMe]

...

Does anybody have any ideas how to fix this? It's really stressing me out.

Why do you assume that the problem does not lie with your ISP?

 

[nagromme]

Could be interference from other 2.4 Ghz devices--even in neighboring houses/apartments. (I've had that problem--Internet would drop out when my cordless phone activated!) Potential problem sources:

Microwave ovens
2.4 Ghz cordless phones
Other WiFi networks (even hidden ones that don't broadcast a name)
Bluetooth devices

If you can, try disabling other such devices, or setting them to a different channel. (Supposedly, only the first, last and middle WiFi channels are really useful for keeping things isolated: the others can overlap.) Also, certain kinds of wall with wire mesh inside can be a problem.

If you can't track down and eliminate a competing signal, then maybe moving your computer to a different location (or even rotating it to face another way) may help.

Also make sure you have all software/firmware updates--some of them in the past have tweaked WiFi reception.