so, we have a home wireless network that we've been using since july with no problems. we have 3 computers hooked into it: 1 pc and 2 mac. however, this past week, things have not been working. when i open the "wireless connection" (i am on the pc, with windows xp) it finds our home network in range and the signal strenght is "excellent." i click "connect" and it tells me that it is connected and everything's fine, but when i open firefox to load a page, it can't find it. i tried using internex explorer and it doesn't work either. i have the same problem on the macs, so it's an issue with the network, not the computer.

i have tried turning off the router, and unplugging the "linksys" router too to no avail. when i plug the ethernet cable into the router (not the linksys, but the one the company gave us) it works fine, just not the wireless.

so yeah, if anyone can offer assistance i would be forever grateful.

OK, when you say you were using your home network since July does that mean that all of the PCs on your network could communicate with each other? Or where you also able to access the internet from all of those connected PCs? Do you use the XP machine to share your internet connection? Was service pack 2 installed on the XP machine. What OS versions are running on the mac's Were there any patches, upgrades,updates or other changes made recently i.e. replacing NICs, Anti-Virus upgrades, service packs,etc. It's also difficult to offer help without knowing more about your Wireless Router/Access Point(AP) and the wireless network adapters(NICs) trying to connect to it, but I'll try. Depending on the wireless standard of your AP there are a few things to look at. Is it 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11b&g or 802.11a,b&g? And what are the NICs Also, how are they set up? Did you configure the AP for better Range(greater distance covered-slower connection) or better Throughput(less coverage-faster connection)? If the AP is 802.11b & g, optimized for throughtput you may not be able to connect with the 802.11b adapters because although they run on the same frequency, they're trying to connect at different speeds(up to 11mb for b,up to 54mb for g). Optimizing for throughput filters out the b's trying to connect at lower connection speeds. Optimizing for range includes the lower speeds and would be the best setting for connecting to a b/g AP with b and g cards. Another thing to check is the configuration of the NICs. Are they set to connect automatically to any AP? Are they set to connect to preffered/secured AP's? Ad-hoc networks? In the case above the first choice would be better. OK, if you say these things are set up properly already, the next thing to check is DHCP are the NICs getting IP addresses from the AP? Is your AP properly set to give out IP addresses? In this case you want the adapters to Obtain IP's and DNS automatically and your AP should be set up as the DHCP server instead of statically assigning IP's.
If all of these connectivity settings are in order your next step will be to check anti-virus and spyblocker program settings. With your XP machine you may have a conflict if Windows firewall is turned on when your anti-virus firewall is also running. You can choose one or the other but not both. Check the equivelant settings on the mac's. If your macs are connecting through the XP machine then you should probably double-check the apple-talk settings. I hope this helps. If you still can't connect I would need you to send some more details about the AP and NIC's.


Good Luck and let me know how you make out.

Thanks,
JD

Hello,
We have wireless at the house here and have had the same issues. For example if I'm in the kitchen (which I am now) with my laptop and the microwave is on, we'll loose the wireless signal. It could be the position your computer is in. Where do you have your computer at in your house/apartment/townhome/whatever ?

Can you be a bit more specific about what your 3 PCs are connected to? Make and model number please.
What internet connection do you have? Cable,DSL or something else? Is the wireless router an all-in -one device or is there a seperate modem?

Do you know the IP address of your router? If so run a ping test (don't ask me how to do this on a Mac!) - on a Windows PC open a command prompt window by typing "cmd" in the Start>Run box.

Assume your remote device has the address 192.168.0.111 then a possible ping command would be:

ping -l 256 -w 5 192.168.0.111

(Note the "-l" is minus lower case L)
You will see results popping up on the screen. When they stop you will see the statistics gathered showing the % packet loss and the time it took for packets to return.
If no packets were lost you are 'talking' to your router Ok.
Then type:
ping www.google.com
What happens?

This sound like some kind of firewall issue or connection issue to your ISP. Are there any changes you are aware of?

hth