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Inconsistent wireless connection with D-Link DI-524 Wireless Router

Hi guys, I have been constantly irritated by my D-Link DI-524 router that was bought some time ago. The problem is that it consistently gives an inconsitent wireless signal to ALL 3 laptops in my home. 2 of them are running on Vista and one on XP and all of them constantly lose internet connection due to the lack of signal.

My home isn't very big and the laptops are all within 10 metres of the router. I did a -t ping to the router from all 3 laptops and all 3 gave me the similar results, which can be seen from the image attached. There is constant spiking of the reply time and even a request timed out once in a while. The signal strength displayed on the windows wireless connection manager is also consistently low.

I've contacted D-Link and even downloaded their latest firmware but all my efforts seem to be in vain. I was wondering if any of you have any idea on how to solve this problem because I game online regularlly and the spikes will cause me to lag or even get disconnected.

I was also considering upgrading to a D-Link gaming router if this problem persists. Do you guys think it's a better idea or should I just go for another brand?

Thanks for the help in advance. P.S. please be a little forgiving for this is my virgin question. =P

pingRouter.jpg

Darr247

Try a hard reset. Unplug all the LAN cables and turn off/disable the nearby wireless cards. With a paperclip, blunted 'fancy' toothpick, or a #00 phillips head, hold in the reset switch on the back (with the power on) for 30 seconds, then - still holding in the reset button - pull the power adapter from the back of the router, wait 30 seconds and (still holding the reset button in) plug the power back into the back. Give it 30 more seconds, then release the reset button. It may be easier to just concentrate on holding the reset button for 90 seconds and toggle the powerstrip's on/off switch (if it has one) at the appropriate times, rather than pulling/inserting the adapter's plug.

Then wait about 20 seconds, or until the lights on the front all stabilize (the Wireless/WLAN light might still be blinking to indicate transmissions), then cycle the power off again for about 15 seconds before finally powering it back up.

Reconfigure the security and any other custom settings you had made previously. I suggest - at a minimum - changing it from the stock 192.168.0.0 network, since windows uses that network as its Internet Connection Sharing subnet, using WPA2 (AES) rather than WEP or WEP+TKIP (aka WPA), and changing the SSID from the stock 'dlink'.

If it's a hardware revision 'A', in my opinion it's time to retire it since those cannot be upgraded to WPA2.
C, D and E hardware versions can be upgraded with firmware updates. DD-WRT apparently won't work in the DI-524 because they don't have enough Flash or RAM memory.

Anyway... see if that 30-30-30 procedure evens out the erratic behavior.

alienatory2k

ASKER

Thanks for the reply. I tried the hard reset but it seemed that it made matters worse.

After the reset, I couldn't connect to the Internet at all. After almost an hour of fiddling about, I discovered that it was because the stupid router had reset the date to 2005 and the latest 'year' that it could be set to was 2007. Since the DHCP was set to expire each connection after 1 week, a '2007 connection' would definitely be expired in 2008. How smart the designers are right?

so anyway I bought myself the gaming router and everything seems fine for the moment. Hope none of the previous problems will pop up again.

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Darr247

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alienatory2k

ASKER

I think it was a B version if I remember correctly. Anyway I 've already upgraded to the Dlink gamin router and everything seems fine as of now. Hopefully this new router is the solution to all my problems hehe. And for being such a kind soul in trying to help me, the points shall be rewarded to you! Tada~