Laptop keeps disconnecting from Network

I just bought a Laptop yesterday, and am having a few network issues.

The laptop says this

Integrated 802.11b/g WLAN connects you to a network or the Internet through a wide range of access points

Acer SignalUp™ technology ensures stronger and more stable connections to WLANs

I have a Linksys 802.11b Router. I have another desktop computer that has a PCI 802.11b/g card, that seems to connect just fine with no disconnects from the same distance.

Any ideas?

Thanks, James

Could be cordless phones interferring, wireless "going to sleep", or the router is having a tough time(conflicts) handing out the addys, especially iff a neighbor has one. I'd go into the router, change channels and assign IP's to all your wireless cards. Check to see if your wireless card is allowing Windows to shut it off to save power. Any 2.4 GHz device (phones) and such can/will screw with wireless networks. Why I went to 5.8 GHz.

It's in properties for the nic. Right click on the nic in device manager and look at the power properties.

Sorry for the lack of reply, I was out. I have seen routers just go bad after a few years, could be the case. At any rate, G is much faster, make sure your nics are g too althought most G routers will do B.
Last router i had with your type of problem, assigning the addy fixed it. Now, if your modem is also a router, it will cause the same problems.

Great!

Good grief, that'd take some time. I useWPA- PSK(shared key you provide) on mine, I find it easier and it's pretty safe. Mines a D-Link, everythings odd-ball.
Try disabling all security in the router, see what happens. Make sure you're not sharing anything before you do. Are you sure your modem isn't a router too? This will produce similar problems. DSL? Cable? What are you using?

"I was just wondering the difference on all of those, and if my choice is a very secure one? "
How long is your key? Numbers and letters mixed usually makes it harder to crack. Doesn't your manual tell you the difference? I think its different encryptions, strengths, maybe even for different OS's, etc. I'm time limited today or I'd Google. No one has cracked mine yet, but I change the key at times.

JFLONGO, MY THOUGHTS YOU ARE NOT THE ISSUE, IT IS THE LINKSYS PRODUCTS. EVERY THING YOU MENTION I HAVE ATTEMPTED, I GET DROPS FREQUENTLY. I CALLED LINKSYS TECH, THE TECH WALK ME THRU AND RECONFIGURED,CHANGED CHANNELS, ISP,REMOVE UNSECURE WIRELESS USERS,REPLACED ROUTERS, ADAPTERS (B AN G) YOU NAME IT.. I HAVE USED A USB AND A NOTE BOOK ADAPTER. I ONCE THOUGHT LINKSYS WAS A GREAT PRODUCT. WHEN I GET AN OPPORTUNITY, I AM GOING TO HARD WIRE, RATHER THAN WIRELESS. IF THIS DOES NOT RESOLVE THE ISSUE, THEN THE ROUND FILE/TRASH CAN IS THE NEXT SOLUTION. IF YOU RESOLVE YOUR DROP ISSUE, PLEASE GIVE ME A CLUE. I HAVE BEEN BATTLING THE DROP ISSUE ABOUT A YEAR OR MORE.

caps are off thanks for your feed back. The adapter issue has been resolved. no more disconnects same laptop

Well, what fixed it?!

This will give you a lot of detailed info on the differences in those types of security: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_security. I'll give you a short version, and anyone feel free to correct me if anything I say is blatently wrong (doing my best here). I'm not sure that there is any huge significant difference between WPA Enterprise and Personal. WPA vs. WPA2 if I remember right is simply an upgrade in standards. There were things supported in WPA that weren't standard, or didn't meet complete standards. Anyway WPA2 officialized those, it's not a HUGE thing, however if you can use WPA2 over WPA. TKIP and AES are essentially different algorithms for encrypting the wireless packets. AES I believe has been approved by the US government for use with material market "SECRET". You should have the option to use both, which is better than only one. RADIUS is basically a client->server authentication, in basica sense it is a "wireless domain". Clients have to authenticate with a RADIUS server before they can connect to and use the access point. Finally WEP... don't use it... please. THG has an article or two on an FBI team that cracked a 128bit WEP key in 3 minutes. 128bit is supposed to be strong, basically WEP stands for Wired Equivalency Privacy. It was the standard for a short time untill some tools such as packet sniffers became available. The type of encryption it uses is very weak against certain types of attacks such as that used by the FBI team.

You should always try to use at least some form of encryption, this will stop the wardrivers and the neighbors kid from accessing your network and internet connectio whenever they want to. WEP wont stop a serious hacker, and if you're worried about that use WPA, it's not worth the time it would take for them to hack it. However as I think was previously mentioned a dictionary attack can be used against any connection, so use something that is abnormal and not in the dictionary. Such as Y3@$0n vs. yeason. Not only is my nick not in the dictionary but the symbols will make an attack take much much longer.


P.S. Avoid WRT54G revision 5 routers, they're crap. If you buy one in a store the R.5 serial numbers start with CDFB, get anything that is CDF0-CDF9. CDFA is revision 4, these are ok but not as good as previous models imo.