BleepingComputer.com: Wireless router won't stay connected

I bought a new wireless router and notebook card adapter 1 month ago. Setup went great, everything worked perfectly for 3 weeks, then the problems started. For some reason, my laptop doesn't get a strong signal from the router anymore (I guess). Now if I want to get on the internet I have to use my Cat5e cable and directly connect my laptop to my router. Without the ethernet cable connecting both devices, then I would have no internet, i'd be stuck offline.


I don't know why this happened, especially after 3 weeks of perfect operation. This occurred out-of-the-blue, because I wasn't messing with any setting changes or anything else. Here's a list of the devices in question:

Dell Inspiron 5150 Laptop with Windows XP SP2


D-Link wireless N broadband router
Model No.: DIR-615
Hardware Version: C1
Firmware Version: 3.01


D-Link cardbus adapter
Model No.: DWA-642
Hardware Version: A2
Firmware Version: 2.10


My network is encrypted with WPA-PSK


Can someone please help me?

Maybe try switching to a higher channel on the router. If the default channel is 6, you might be picking up interference. Or do a firmware upgrade on the router? Might help.

I logged into my router by going to my web browser and typing http://192.168.0.1 into the URL. I checked the firmware settings and it says I'm up-to-date with the firmware. I looked all over the router settings page, but I couldn't find anything that talks about what channel I'm on or even how to change the channel. How do I do that?

Also, I don't know if this will help you diagnose my problem, but while I was on my routers settings page I looked around and I found something that allows me to Ping my computer. So I went ahead and clicked "Ping" and the result said "FAILED".