I have several PCs on my home network. I used to have an old linksys wireless router, which I had lots of
problems with (including dropped connection) and I replaced it with a brand new Netgear wireless router.
The connection still drops about 5-10 times a day. This happens on the PC that is directly plugged into the
router, not to the ones that are connected wirelessly (those PCs are now off). If I make the connection
directly to the PC from the cable modem, the problem disappears.
The simplest way I found to fix this is:
1. Disconnect the power to the router, and connect it again
2. Click on Repair Connections in my connections

This works 80% of the times, the remaining 20% I get a message about not being able
to renew the IP - then I repeat the process and it usually works.

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Make and model number of the router and the cable modem?
Who's your ISP?

Edit: Are you saying the wireless connected PC's did not experience drop outs when the directly connected one did?

Run some ping tests:
You need to know the IP address of the internet gateway/router. Then do Start>Run and type cmd to open a command window.

At the prompt type ipconfig this will show you your own address and should show you the gateway address.

At the prompt type ping -l 256 -w 10 <ip address> where obviously <ip address> is replaced by the gateway address you found above and "-l" is minus lower case L.

If you experience packet losses or lengthy delays (50ms or more) then -
Buy a brand new Cat5E patch cable to use between the PC and the router. Replace the Ethernet card in the PC.

hth

Have your Cable ISP check the sevice from the house/apartment to the pole. If the squirls have been chewing on it (and I am sure they have ) you will have a degraded signal They have a mete they can check it with (or they should).