Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with internet and connection

The case of the haunted xbox.

cirrostratus — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:48:39 -0800

My internet connection is haunted! I lose connectivity the second I turn on my xbox, even when the network cable is unplugged. How can that be? The situation: we have Mediacom service in my apartment that provides a connection for two computers and xbox live on two xboxes via a netgear router. This works fine most of the time until the second I turn on the second xbox and the internet goes out every time. When this happens and the mediacom modem starts blinking just the internet light until we reset it. Eventually the internet seems to come back after reseting the modem and it seems to come back faster if there are less than four things hooked up to the router.

Here's the weird part: the connection breaks even if we have the xbox's network cable unplugged.

How can an xbox that isn't even hooked up to the router effect our connection?

More importantly, how can I prevent this from happening in the future so I can get down to business and kill some zombies in Left 4 Dead?

Need. Internet. Back.

Beardman — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:57:33 -0800

Why can't I connect to the internet anymore? Is customer service giving me a plausible explanation? Our home internet connection has been down all weekend. We use a new and speedy 24" iMac. When we try to connect to PPPoE, it just says "Connecting...Connecting...Connecting" and finally says that it can't connect to the server. No amount of power cycles and restarts make a difference. This has happened once before, a few months ago, and changing the access password with the ISP solved the problem (until Friday).

Our apartment sucks and there is only one working phone jack, which is in an inconvenient location. Thus, we run a 15 foot phone cord from it to a normal telephone cord splitter, from which a 10 foot (filtered) telephone cord goes to the modem, and a second cord goes to our telephone.

Yesterday, my ISP's customer service guy said that the phone cord from the wall to the modem has to be 6 feet or less, or else it'll be unreliable. He correctly surmised that we often have connection issues (i.e. sometimes it says "Authenticating..." for a long time), although never before recently has it totally failed to connect, and for a couple of years we never even had the long authentication issue either.

When I told him that this issue has previously been solved by a password change, he tried that again and it didn't solve the problem. I asked him why, if the cord length is the issue, we were able to have the same setup for years without a problem. He replied that the cord can deteriorate over time.

Various forums online debate whether the length of the phone cord has anything to do with internet speed or connection reliability. Does it? Could the problem be that I'm using that splitter? Does it matter where the splitter is--i.e. should the splitter only be at the wall jack, or can I have it where it is, after the first 15 foot cord? Should I do as my ISP suggests, and either (1) replace the telephone cords that go to the modem with new ones (to solve the supposed "deterioration" problem), or (2) try to rig it up with a 6 foot cord and then a really long ethernet cable (to solve the supposed "long phone cord" problem)?

Thanks for any advice you can give me. FYI, this is in Toronto, and the ISP is Primus. (I would rather switch to Teksavvy, but when I put my number into their website it says they can't provide service to me, even though I live right downtown...?)

Can someone please explain random internet slowings which can only be fixed by unplugging router...

dan g. — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:56:30 -0800

What is causing my Qwest DSL internet connection to get slow several times a day. Unplugging the router fixes the problem temporarily. We have Qwest DSL hooked up to an apple time capsule/time machine thing which serves as our wireless router. We've had this problem for several years where the internet connection suddenly gets molasses slow and the only fix is to unplug the router, leave it unplugged for 30 seconds, then plug it back in and wait for the connection to come back up.
Recently though, this has been happening with more frequency, to the point where it happens 3-4 times a day now, and the connection can take as long as 5-10 minutes to come back sometimes (this time varies wildly though).
2 questions:
1: Can someone explain in layman's terms what is happening and why unplugging the router fixes the problem?
2: How best to address this problem. Is the router just wearing out? Is there something that Qwest can/should do on their end to fix things? Would a new router solve the problem?

Thanks AskMe!

Sharing a 3G connection

hungrysquirrels — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:05:26 -0800

Home networking: sharing 3G connection on XP... I've gone through some articles and stuff but still can't get it to work. Could use some help.

My desktop connects to the internet using a USB stick, which uses 3G as my internet connection. I want to share this access with my netbook so my roommate and I can be online at the same time.

The host:
Desktop running XP
Wireless and CAT5 capability not currently being used
USB 3G stick

The client:
Netbook running XP
Wireless and CAT5 capability not currently being used

I have a CAT5 hub with some cables, and a wireless router at my disposal. Wireless would be preferred, ad-hoc I think might be ideal.

I had them connected through the hub earlier, could ping each other, but still couldn't get the netbook to access the web.

I've setup home networks, wired and wireless, a couple of times, but that was using a typical broadband modem. I don't know the intricacies when the modem is USB.

If there's any clarification questions, and I don't reply, it's because I screwed things up again.

So, network gurus, what would you do? I may just be approaching it from the wrong angle, if it is actually doable.

Why does my Airport connection drop every evening at the same time?

meerkatty — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:41:43 -0800

Every night this week my Macbook has stopped connecting to my Airport. Why? How can I fix this? Original Airport base station, circa 2002. Macbook.

Never had a problem with this equipment and have been using this same Airport in this same apartment for seven years. Now this week my connection to the Airport stops working around the same time every evening but resumes working a few hours later. Not an internet problem as I can connect via cable.

What's going on? And you should talk to me like I'm complete idiot. I can work computers by plugging them in and that's about it.

Do other computers fear the Chicago Machine?

burnfirewalls — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:34:12 -0800

My DSL is slow...but only when connecting to servers outside Chicago. What gives? I'm located in Chicago. I have a3mbps down/512kbps up plan with my DSL provider, who rides on AT&Ts lines. When I do a speedtest on a server located in Chicago (or download files from it) I get around 2.43 downstream/0.43 up. When I connect to a server anywhere else (including Milwaukee or St. Louis) my speed drops to 1.4 downstream/0.32 up. My DSL provider claims that their line tests show that everything is okay, and so does AT&T. They want to dispatch a technician, on my dime, to diagnose the problem. The rate they quoted sounds like it will add up to a few hundred dollars.

I've removed every extraneous device - I just have my main computer hardwired into the new DSL modem that my provider sent me. Because I get full speed to servers in Chicago, it doesn't sound to me (who is admittedly a n00b at networks) like it's a problem with my local circuit. Is it possible that this is a problem on my end? Is it worth it for me to fork over a few hundred dollars for the technician to tell me that the problem is upstream?

Speed suck

zenpop — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:26:54 -0800

Recent Mac software update crippled my online speed/connection. The other day I allowed the Software Updater to run on my iMac. Included in the OSX update was some sort of Airport tweaking as well. Now my connection to the internet has slowed considerably. I've posted 'help' questions on Apple's website and MacFixit. No one answers. I've rebooted both the computer and the cable modem, and router. Nada.

Anyone here have any suggestions? Can I 'undo' the update that happened to Airport in that update? (No, I don't run Time Machine on my computer).

Thanks

Share – 1.the full or proper portion or part allotted or belonging to or contributed or owed by an individual or group.

mu~ha~ha~ha~har — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:49:09 -0800

One internet connection shared between three computers. One jackass who uses the entire download limit(!!) and gets our speed capped(!!). So, what software or hardware solutions might there be?? Secrecy isn't a concern. That they are too stupid to be trusted is. Is there maybe something that monitors where the data is going? And also a way to hobble their line speed, once they've reached their 'share'. (I'd prefer not to just yank their cable out completely, but whatever.) I have no idea (keywords to google??) so I'm completely open to suggestion on this :) Thanks! *Other info...?
Our ISP only records a grand total. The modem (Dlink DSL-G604T) only keeps a 24hr log. (Of whatever info it is that it does collect??)
The computer in question runs XP and connects to the modem via a standard ethernet cable. It's also the only one that really needs its data being counted, if that makes it any easier?

Help me with my internet annoyance.

zardoz — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:37:04 -0800

I sometimes have trouble with downloading via torrent: surfing becomes a slow crawl/not an option. I have a broadband DSL connection and I'll often download torrents via Transmission on my iMac.

The problem is with torrents: with either Transmission, or uTorrent I can go for several days, even longer than a week, but then suddenly surfing pages on a browser will slow to a crawl and then stop. Torrent downloading may or may not stop at that point, but eventually it stops too.

When this happens I unplug my DSL modem, plug it back in, wait a minute or two, and then I'm firing on all cylinders, torrent downloading and surfing are good for another week or so.

So how can I avoid this step? Settings in Transmission? Hack the modem?

Vista 64 drops Internet connection?

pghjezebel — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:29:02 -0800

What is causing my Vista 64 PC to keep dropping its Internet connection? I keep losing my internet connection on my PC, which is running Vista 64bit. I'm at loss for what is causing it. After searching online, I've tried the following solutions:

-Made sure Vista is not putting my Network adapter (Model: Realtek rtl8168c(p)/8111c(p) family pci-e GBE NIC) to sleep.
-Disabled DHCP and DNS on our router (which is a Linksys RTP300 from Vonage).
- netsh winsock reset

None of these suggestions have worked. Sometimes I stay connected for a while, and then I'm offline again. Sometimes I need to restart, other times it will reconnect itself within a matter of seconds. It also seems to kick me offline more frequently when both my husband and I are online at the same time.

My next actions were going to be to try a different network card and/or router, but any suggestions would be appreciated!

Programs can't connect in Windows 7

flatluigi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:48:13 -0800

Windows 7 help: Some programs can connect to the internet and some can't. Why and how can I fix it? So I've started using Windows 7 recently. It's been going great - much better in some ways than Vista. However, I'm running into something strange: Some programs can't connect to the internet.

What works: Firefox, Chrome, Last.fm
What doesn't: Internet Explorer, Steam browser, MediaMonkey's Last.fm plugin

I've turned Windows Firewall off but the issue persists and I have no idea why. Any help?

Something is clogging up my wifi connection

gfrobe — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:49:09 -0800

How do I isolate and fix this WiFi problem on my home network? I have two computers, a desktop and a laptop, connected to my router wirelessly. When transferring a large file wirelessly from the desktop to the laptop (or to my Xbox via FTP), I'm unable to connect to any internet sites at all from the desktop. It's as if the wifi connection is being sucked up completely by the transfer. However, while this transfer is happening, I can surf the web fine from the laptop without any problems.

This all started happening only recently. That is, I used to be able to transfer a large file from the desktop across the network and still browse the internet from the desktop at the same time without any problem. I've also noticed that the same problem also happens with bittorent i.e. if I'm downloading or uploading from the desktop, even at slow speeds, I can't connect to any sites at all from the desktop but can surf from the laptop fine.

How do I fix this?

Erratic network behavior

Gyan — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:39:51 -0800

My net connection has dropped like clockwork around midnight over the past few days. What's up? For the past 4 or 5 days, around midnight, give or take 10 minutes, I lose my net connection and don't get it back till morning. It doesn't happen during the day.

At first, I thought it was my router Netgear WGR614 v7 since it has been flaky before. But I bridged my LAN/WAN cables together (my ISP has a switch in the building and I get a CAT-5 direct from there) and the issue persists.

So, I try to ping the gateway but can't, and Wireshark shows other customers trying to get the gateway's MAC via ARP. BTW, I am assigned a static private IP i.e. behind a NAT, due to "scarce IPs".

So, today morning, with my connection on, I note down my gateway's MAC. An hour ago, my connection dropped momentarily. When I checked my gateway MAC, it was different than in the morning. When I flushed ARP and checked again soon after, it was different again and was a 3rd set of numbers, this time I could resolve names but not connect anywhere; this one also happened to be listed twice i.e. for another IP as well. I noted all numbers, and tried each as a static entry. The first one (morning) worked but was erratic (dropouts), the middle one seems to work normally (so far), and the final one doesn't.

What seems to be going on? Local or remote?

My OS is XP SP2. This is in India.

Stay ON, will you? I want my internet.

phunniemee — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:52:30 -0800

I have a ThinkPad. Why does my wireless radio (in the ThinkVantage Access Connections/Wireless Connection Status menu) power itself off? How can I make it stay on? I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 running Vista. Occasionally, when the wireless signal is low, I'll lose internet altogether. The culprit is almost always this ThinkVantage Access Connections thing (for those of you who have the same thing, it's the thing that comes up from the signal strength icon in the taskbar). It says Wireless Connection Status, and it has a little button there with the option of powering the wireless radio on or off. For some reason, when I have a low (but not too low, and sometimes it happens even when the signal is a good strength) signal, the thing will power the wireless radio OFF, and I have to manually turn it back on again before it can connect.

Does anyone know why it does this? More importantly, is there something I can do to make it stay ON? It's really obnoxious when I have someone sitting right next to me happily using the internet while I'm clicking the power on wireless radio button and cursing at my computer.

I found this related question, but I don't have to restart (ok, maybe once or twice I did) in order for it to work. The thing just shuts itself off randomly and I have to manually turn it back on by opening the thing and clicking the button.

Thanks!

Internet Speed tests lie, my connection sucks!

toekneebullard — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:43:45 -0800

Why is it when I take internet speed tests my rating is great, but overall my browsing is miserably sluggish? OK, so I've called Comcast at least 10 times, and every time they go through the same crap: Unlpug modem, restart it, blah blah blah. A few times they've had me take speed tests to "prove" my connection is fine, but again, normal browsing is slow.

Here are the results from a couple tests:
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
Download Speed: 12963 kbps (1620.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 950 kbps (118.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

http://www.speedtest.net/
Download: 10223 kb/s
Upload: 710 kb/s

I'm running Firefox 3 on a pretty nice computer. My wife is running the same on an older computer, both get the sluggish net result.

So why is it the tests say I have great speed, but browsing is so slow?

Thanks for any help,
Tony

Connected to Ask.Me ... Waiting for reply

Gyan — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:50:21 -0800

I can't connect to a couple of sites from any browser. One of them being Wikipedia. In FF3, I type "en.wikipedia.org" and press go. The status bar gets stuck on "Waiting for en.wiki.....". It never actually times out (at least, not within the first couple of minutes before my patience runs out). Similar outcome in IE6. This occasionally happens with Metafilter as well. The first time this happened was 6 months ago. It soon got back to normal and remained that way till mid-June. Oddly, when Wikipedia is OK, Metafilter doesn't load, and vice versa. But mostly it's Wikipedia which is down for the past 2-3 days. I can ping both sites successfully. My hosts file has no entries besides localhost. I'm using OpenDNS alongwith my ISP's.

I'm in Mumbai, India on Metro Ethernet and my (local) ISP techs know squat except their script. OS is XP SP2. No other site gives me problems, except for one, but that seems a server-side issue.

Why did my wireless connection die on 1 of our 4 computers?

susiepie — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:05:35 -0800

We have 2 desktops and 2 laptops. All of the sudden, only one of the desktop's Internet connection went kaput. Why, and what can I do to fix it? Forgive my obvious ignorance of this subject, but I've Googled my little heart out and cannot find a solution to this really annoying problem. We have 1 Mac desktop computer, 1 Windows/Dell desktop computer, and 2 Windows laptops. The host for our modem/router is the Mac. About 2 months ago, the Internet connection on our Dell desktop got very, very slow, and would still connect using a wireless connection, but it would take 10-15 minutes to download a page. Eventually, it has just quit working altogether. All of our other computers can connect with no problem or speed issues.

Here's what I've tried so far:
- Buying and installing a new D-Link USB wireless connection port
- Moved router to another location
- Reset/restarted the modem and router and host computer
- Tried several of the networking and Internet troubleshooters available on XP and online
- Reset Winsock catalog through cmd
- Pinged my ISP and yahoo.com - both work
- Did the release/renew thing through ipconfig
- Uninstalled/reinstalled drivers for new
- Moved the cordless phone to a different room, away from the router
- Installed and ran AVG, Spybot, and Ad-Aware; also did a defrag
- Uninstalled several unused programs to see if they were interfering
- Called my ISP about 7 times, they had no suggestions
- Ran a System Restore on the affected computer
- Tried several different combinations of channels

And at least 20 other things I can't think of right now. I'm sort of at my wit's end. I'm close to going and buying a totally new computer (and a portable hard drive to transfer the stuff, too, because all of my important files are on this computer, naturally). But I really can't afford all of that right now.

To throw yet another wrench into this mystery - about a week ago, I noticed that a new wireless connection was available through a router I had never seen before as an option. I use Netgear - this one is a Belkin. None of my neighbors have Internet connections that I know of, and we live at least 100-200 yards from anyone else, anyway. I can occasionally and temporarily get a connection using the Belkin, but do not feel safe doing that since I have no idea how/where my computer's picking up that signal. None of our other computers can even detect the Belkin signal. So strange.

Do any of you geniuses out there have any advice for anything else I can try to solve this totally aggravating problem?

How to expand wireless network?

omaralarifi — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:19:25 -0800

I am using Belkin N1 Vision wireless router to get access to the internet. I need to expand my wireless network coverage but I am confuse what to buy? Another Router, Switch, or access point? I prefer less cabling of course. Can I connect a router to another router and solve the problem?

Home internet networks over large distances?

zaebiz — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:48:45 -0800

I have a wireless router in my house. 150 metres away I have a shed where I want to be able to use the internet on my laptop. There are electricity outlets in the house and in the shed but not in between. How do I get the signal from the house to my shed? For example are there battery-powered boosters that I could lay between the two places and recharge them at night? Can I buy a more powerful router? Can I buy some sort of signal magnifier to attach to the router? Or .... is it crazy to run a telephone cable all the way from the ADSL port in my house to the router in my shed? Any other ideas?

Only for Firefox, only on one computer: manual connection to high speed required. Why?

flibbertigibbet — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:05:26 -0800

After installing a new wireless router, what router/network setting would force only Firefox, and on only one computer in the network, connect to the internet and ethernet manually, while everything else connects automatically? Some background: all but one (1) of the computers mentioned run Windows XP.

A friend gave us a very broken laptop of hers a while back. We fixed it, got to keep it, and set up a wireless network to accommodate it.

In the network we have: DesktopA (Vista, new server), DesktopB (old server, connected to printers, the problem), DesktopC, DesktopD, and LaptopA.

We switched from a non-wireless Linksys router to a "Linksys Wireless-G 2.4Ghz (54Mbps) Broadband Router." There was a moment where the two routers were daisychained.

The only change to the network was the change in the router, and in individual security permissions on each computer to allow the computers to connect via the new router, and to see each other's shared files.

Only with Firefox, and only on DesktopB, are we forced to manually connect with the (broadband) internet. There is literally nothing I can think of that explains this, especially as it's not required to connect with Firefox on any of the other computers in the network. However, once I manually connect, it works like a dream.

The connection screen is seen here. Even weirder is the fact that the connection screen is well-known to us, following some internet problems resulting from uninstall BitTorrent, which damaged some files whose name escapes me, causing intermittent internet access. However, back then, the client has its own icon--as you can see here, the icon it takes is Firefox's.

We even removed the connection clients (installed during the BitTorrent problem) from DesktopB entirely, but this one still pops up every time I start Firefox after restarting the computer. Any help?

Why can't my computer connect to the internet reliably?

entropic — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:56:07 -0800

I'm having an intermittent problem connecting to the internet, and the problem appears to be narrowed down to one computer, as others on the network are not affected. I say intermittent because if I click links or enter a url enough times, it eventually connects. My desktop at home has Windows XP installed, and I mostly use Firefox (although the problem is not solved by switching to IE). When I attempt to click a link on a webpage, usually nothing happens. If I click enough times, eventually the status bar and/or indicator on the tab open will show that it's working, and a connection will be made. Same thing happens if I enter a url in the address bar - at first, nothing, but if I hit enter enough times, eventually the page will load, although often incompletely.

I know the problem is isolated to my computer (and not a router/ISP problem) because my wife's laptop connected to the same network has no problems at all. Additionally, the problem exists whether I'm connected with an ethernet cable or using a wireless adapter.

I've tried rebooting, but this seems to do nothing. I'm not really sure where to start a google search for this issue, as I find it difficult/lengthy to explain and I'm not sure what terms I should be using.

Are there certain settings in Windows that I can reset to defaults or check for problems?

What does browser encryption protect me from?

Avenger50 — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:57:47 -0800

When my browsing and downloading is "encrypted," who or what am I protecting myself from? Who or what exactly would or could intercept unencrypted browsing, downloads, or submitted form information? Is it my ISP? Is it a trojan on my computer? Is it a port-scanning hacker? Is it someone on my LAN monitoring traffic? What exactly does browser encryption protect me from?

Can I get a wired (ethernet) connection off a wireless network?

TonyRobots — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 06:14:52 -0800

Can I get a wired (ethernet) connection off a wireless network? I have free access to my landlord's wifi. I also have a couple of devices (most importantly series 1 tivo "hacked" to have an ethernet card inside) that require a wired connection. I have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router with DD-WRT firmware installed.

Assume I don't have physical access to the landlord's cable modem/router, though I might be able to finagle it (once or twice) if I ask nicely.

This should be doable, but for some reason I'm not seeing the solution. Can you help out?

Why is my internet connection suddenly crap, on just ONE computer on my home network?

greendress — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:42:30 -0800

Why is my internet connection suddenly crap, on just ONE computer on my home network? I have cable internet from Time Warner (Road Runner), which I've had for 2 months. Their modem connects to my router, a LinkSys WRT54G, which I've had for a couple of years. We have four computers on the network - two desktops wired to the router, and two laptops that connect wirelessly. All run Windows.

Just in the last couple of weeks, the connection on my desktop (Windows XP) has been, intermittently, completely s***. I'm toodling along just fine, and all of a sudden everything slows to a crawl. Or just stops connecting at all for a while. A little while later (5 - 30 minutes or so) it'll be fine, only to do it again an hour later. (Times are estimates; there is no pattern that I can discern.)

The husband's desktop (also XP) will, at the same time, be just fine and dandy. We will try to load the exact same website at the same time, and he will get it in one second while mine will c...r...a...w...l along, often eventually giving up and giving me the "can't connect" error.

Tried firing up the laptops during times when I'm having problems, and they are also fine. It's just my desktop.

I use Firefox (latest version), but the problem seems to appear in Internet Explorer, too.

I sometimes have torrents downloading, and at first I wondered if this was causing a problem -- maybe Time Warner limiting my bandwidth or something -- but having one downloading or not doesn't appear to make a difference. I can not download anything for days, and continue to have connection problems multiple times per day.

I tried plugging my ethernet cable into a different jack on the router. No help.

I tried replacing my ethernet cable. No help.

Since all other computers on the network are fine, and since I can connect to the network (i.e. connect to my husband's PC), I'm assuming it's not the router. Also assuming it's not Time Warner, since all other computers connect fine.

I do not believe anything has been changed in regards to our network, my computer, my browser, etc. My husband doesn't fiddle with such things, and I cannot think of anything I have done or changed since we first moved here and got everything hooked up.

I'm usually a pretty good Google-sniffer, but I'm not coming up with anything helpful for this one. I don't have a clue what the problem could be.

Why, why, wi-fi?

sprocket87 — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:50:18 -0800

Why does my laptop's wireless network fail to work after resuming from standby, requiring a reboot? The laptop in question is a Dell Vostro 1400 laptop, integrated Dell 802.11g adapter, Windows XP SP2. The adapter works fine and can detect and connect to the networks with no issue, normally. But it freaks out sometimes.

I'll give you a typical scenario:

I open the laptop on my lunch break at work and connect to my office WiFi network (802.11g, WPA, static IP). Works fine, stays connected through lunch. Shut the lid and take the laptop home after work.

Get home, open the laptop. It resumes from standby and I set the IP to DHCP. It sees my home network (802.11g, WPA, DHCP) and tries to connect to it, but fails. I've tried repairing/disable/re-enabling manually, hard-disabling the adapter from the laptop's front switch and re-enabling, and stopping the WZC service (which refuses to restart). When I do a repair, it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to disable/enable the adapter, and stalls at "Connecting" for several minutes, before it finally bails and errors out. No matter what, it won't reconnect until I reboot.

When I reboot it works fine (though the network services seem to take a long time to start). Even if I reboot with the IP still set to my work's static IP, I can change it to DHCP and it connects fine. (Point being that it requires a reboot for the interface to even work, and doesn't appear to be related to static IP vs DHCP)

Even stranger: If I reboot, it works fine until I shut the lid and go to standby again. If I resume, there's a 50/50 chance of it working again. It might work, it might not. It might work for 30 mins and then flake out, and nothing works but a reboot. Last night, for instance, I put the laptop in standby at home, then brought it to work today. I started it from standby during lunch and changed my IP and it connected fine. It died an hour later and wouldn't come back until I rebooted. Eh!??

I think it's a "bigger" network adapter issue. I also have a bluetooth module in the laptop and it works fine all the time, but if the WiFi drops then the Bluetooth doesn't work either. That's not even the same adapter! Is there a service that's flipping out or something?

Please throw any suggestions my way. It's not specifically related to one or even two wifi networks; it happens on whatever network I'm connecting too. It seems like it has to be an adapter issue!

Note that this system was originally Vista but I replaced it with a fresh XP install. Dell does have up-to-date XP drivers though, which I'm running.

Thanks!!