Wireless internet.

[Jon]

Now that I have two teenage kids, went out and bought 2 identical computers, HP to be exact, the wireless router is copping a flogging.
Question I have is, Has anyone got two identical wireless connected computers and do you encounter any issues with one computer locking another out of the router signal.
Reason I ask is I have a home Acer wireless, 2 x HP for the tin lids and a Dell D630 for work. All wireless.
The Acer and the dell are all ok but the 2 x HP knock each other off the router.
Ideas?

 

[Hew]

Now that I have two teenage kids, went out and bought 2 identical computers, HP to be exact, the wireless router is copping a flogging.
Question I have is, Has anyone got two identical wireless connected computers and do you encounter any issues with one computer locking another out of the router signal.
Reason I ask is I have a home Acer wireless, 2 x HP for the tin lids and a Dell D630 for work. All wireless.
The Acer and the dell are all ok but the 2 x HP knock each other off the router.
Ideas?

It could be a simple problem of both the computers thinking they're the same I.P., or that the default gateway is wrong, other than that no idea.

 

[Daneel]

What's the exact model of the wireless base station? Maybe there's a firmware update for it.

Other things you can try include changing the broadcast channel of the wireless to reduce interference as well as increasing/decreasing the transmit power on the wireless on the laptops through device manager.

How quickly does one knock the other off? If it's pretty much instantly you should probably manually set the IP address of your computers so that they don't interfere at a network level. i run dedicated IPs for all of my machines - never had a conflict. If it's after a bit of time, i'd say there's signal interference and you should switch channels on the base station.

hope that helps you out a bit - if you're still stuck, i'll try to help you some more.


*edit - or upgrade to a better base station. I have a $1200 cisco one (it's POE too) that i've had over 40 machines connected to simultaneously and it works flawlessly 24/7 with a ~150m range, or 300 outdoors bit pricy though.. some of the higher end d-link ones are ok, as are some linksys ones. but i wouldn't trade anything for my cisco one, it's perfect.

 

[24alpha]

It could be a simple problem of both the computers thinking they're the same I.P., or that the default gateway is wrong, other than that no idea.

I doubt very much he would have put in identical IP's on both machines. My guess is he is using DHCP from the wireless router.

What's the exact model of the wireless base station? Maybe there's a firmware update for it.

Other things you can try include changing the broadcast channel of the wireless to reduce interference as well as increasing/decreasing the transmit power on the wireless on the laptops through device manager.

How quickly does one knock the other off? If it's pretty much instantly you should probably manually set the IP address of your computers so that they don't interfere at a network level. i run dedicated IPs for all of my machines - never had a conflict. If it's after a bit of time, i'd say there's signal interference and you should switch channels on the base station.

hope that helps you out a bit - if you're still stuck, i'll try to help you some more.


*edit - or upgrade to a better base station. I have a $1200 cisco one (it's POE too) that i've had over 40 machines connected to simultaneously and it works flawlessly 24/7 with a ~150m range, or 300 outdoors bit pricy though.. some of the higher end d-link ones are ok, as are some linksys ones. but i wouldn't trade anything for my cisco one, it's perfect.

Pretty stupid recommending a $1200 base station for a home. You think people have money to burn?

OP, if they are identical machines, did you give them the host name? Are they different? We run identical machines on our Enterprise wireless network all the time, differneces are host names. IP's assigned via DHCP.

Now, are you using static IP's, did you configure the PC's and call them say....Home? Can you give us a screen dump of the network config?

 

[Daneel]

i'm not recommending the $1200 cisco one - i don't have money to burn either and it just happened to work out sweet for me that I have it. I was just saying that there definitely upgrades from the acer one, it just depends how much you want to spend.

If you look closely, you'll see that i actually recommended some of the higher-end d-link or linksys ones instead, which are much more reasonably priced at around $150-$250.

 

[3viltoast3r]

i'm not recommending the $1200 cisco one - i don't have money to burn either and it just happened to work out sweet for me that I have it. I was just saying that there definitely upgrades from the acer one, it just depends how much you want to spend.

If you look closely, you'll see that i actually recommended some of the higher-end d-link or linksys ones instead, which are much more reasonably priced at around $150-$250.

Not D-LINK. I have had 1 dynalinks old school ethernet die, a new DLINK router shit itself and a DLINK wifi + router (current) constant trip up. From what ive heard Belkin is better.

 

[24alpha]

Not D-LINK. I have had 1 dynalinks old school ethernet die, a new DLINK router shit itself and a DLINK wifi + router (current) constant trip up. From what ive heard Belkin is better.

Or Netgear...but we're not recommending that Jon just run our and purchase another Wireless router or access point.

 

[Jon]

How quickly does one knock the other off? If it's pretty much instantly you should probably manually set the IP address of your computers so that they don't interfere at a network level. i run dedicated IPs for all of my machines - never had a conflict.

Yep, instantly is it. Signal strength is not the issue as the further machine does it also.
D-Link 524, HP Pavillion Dv6
I will manually set the IP addy's tomorrow and see if it makes a difference.
Thanks all.

 

[TheBofh]

Static IPs are a pain, check the lease time on the DHCP settings, you might find that both PCs are requesting the same IP address & the router isn't clever enough to assign the next address in the pool to the second machine. I've had this problem on a Belkin router myself. Reserving IPs by MAC address might fix it, it's also a good security precaution so you don't have your neighbours cashing in on your bandwidth.

 

[W2ttsy]

also if you are looking for a more solid router, then you cant go past the Linksys WRT54GL. I've installed them now in 3 places (home, friend, girlfriend) and they work a charm. About $100 depending on if you shop around.

im also going for the two machines same IP error. My iPhone occasionally causes this sort of error and one of my laptops will fall off the grip until a new IP is assigned.

I would also be hesitant to switch to static IPs. It causes all sorts of problems when you swap to another network and have to revert back to DHCP. i know locations exist, but even remembering to switch those are a pain.

 

[Daneel]

you installed one in your gf? should post her up in the 'show us your gash' thread.. she'd be a hit if you managed to fit...

ok, i'm stopping, i'm stopping