Wifi troubles...Help!

[Lord Blackadder]

I'm playing volunteer IT guy for a crew of archaeologists working in the field, and we have a bit of a problem...

I have a Motorola SBV5120 cable modem connected to a D-Link WBR 2310 wireless router, and the wireless is as flaky as can be.

Back home I had 3 PCs connected wirelessly with this router (on a DSL modem) and never had any issues. Now signal strength comes and goes seemingly at random. Occasionally, our PCs lose the signal entirely even if we are a foot away from the router. I have also had the signal strength show full, but have no connectivity; after a minute or two, turning off the airport, turning it back on and rebooting the browser brings it back.. As I said before, this happens regardless of range from the router.

The router is set up with WPA encryption. At maximum I might have 6-7 PCs using the wifi, but the troubles seem to happen regardless of the number of people connected.

Any suggestions?

 

[Kermit the frog]

Get a better router. If your running that many people I think you and your network could benifit a router upgrade. Take a trip to best buy you can get a real nice router for like 50 bucks.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Assuming the router is the issue, how do I determine which is a "better" router? I fully admit that I am not a networking guru, but I paid $70 for this one a year or so ago and it has never been problematic for me before - the Belkin unit it replaced, however, was junk. I would prefer an airport base station but don't have 180 bucks to spend.

 

[Kermit the frog]

Get a better router. If your running that many people I think you and your network could benifit a router upgrade. Take a trip to best buy you can get a real nice router for like 50 bucks.