Solved! Wirelss connection dropping

If you were using a wireless router then a software firewall is superfluous anyway.

Not just superfluous. Microsoft says that a firewall beh> > I discovered the problem with my browser 'forgetting' where the

I believe that you can use a range of IP addresses as well. Im not sure what the range of issued IPs that your router issues, but if you use 192.0.0.0- 192.99.99.99 (as an example) it may help. Or be sure to use an obscure subnet range.

Gunner

Good to know. Thanks everyone.

Ron Thompson On the Beautiful Florida Space Coast, right beside the Kennedy Space Center, USA

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

--Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

I wouldn't trust anything Microsoft has to say on the subject. The firewall that comes with XP is a joke. It only monitors incoming traffic. If you have a virus, trojan horse or spyware (like a lot of Microsoft stuff) on your machine, a decent firewall will alert you to outgoing traffic. I use Sygate Personal Firewall, which is a freebie. That combined with a hardware firewall in my router has kept everything working fine, and Sygate has notified me about all sorts of interesting things trying to send stuff out.

I can't say for sure how it will work with a wireless system, but I will know shortly. I've got a new laptop that is about to go wireless, and I'm running Sygate on it now.

Doug White

I just disabled my wired LAN and switched to the wireless system. It's too early to claim everything is working happily together, but at least I can read news OK. Email works fine too.

Doug White

Doug White

On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 20:38:51 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@alum.mit.edu (Doug White) vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Just a note about Sygate, Doug. They have (had?) an admitted weakness with any sneaky that could cause a loopback, I think called a "local loopback", and then create its own connection to the web. It would _completely_ bypass the FW. The FW would not stop it or warn you.

My terminology might be wrong, but I have seen this happen, and then found out about the gotcha.

[ ... ]

Hmm ... ranges should have the octets (the parts between dots) ending in 255, not 99. And the 192 series should really be 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255 (also listed as 192.168.0.0/16, as it only gets a class-B address. 192.0.0.0-192.255.255.255 would be a Class-A address, which overlaps into addresses which are assigned for non-private networks. You get that with the 10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255 (10.0.0.0/8), and you get a bit more than the 192.168 gives you with

172.16.0.0-172.31.255.255 (172.16.0.0/12)

10.0.0.0--10.255.255.255 (Full Class-A)

172.16.0.0-172.31.255.255 (sixteen Class-B subnets) 192.168.0.0--192.168.255.255 (Full Class-B)

and *par*t of the range:

127.0.0.0-127.255.255.255

is also private, with 127.0.0.1 being the "loopback" address, used to connect to the current machine as though it were an external one. This will work even on a unix system which has *no* ethernet connectivity.

Note that only part of the 127.0.0.0 range is truly usable as private, as they have started assigning some of the upper end of that range.

All of these are supposed to be "private" address ranges, and nothing with those addresses should be directly routed to the outside world. (Your router, or firewall may use NAT (Network Address Translation) to make them appear to be an address on the outside net, but this should ideally be done for specific protocols (such as http for web browsers), not for everything on the system.

Enjoy, DoN.

Nonsense!

It depends entirely on what firewall and virus protection system that you are using. I'm using Norton Internet Security and Norton Anti-virus protect in conjunction with a Linksys wireless router and it works just fine. (Of course this protection cost about $50/year, still it's worth every dime!)

You get what you pay for.

In my case, we normally have four wireless connected computers, all running Windows XP Pro, scattered throughout the house, plus visitors who regularly connect to our "hot zone". Add to this my shop/office computer than is hard-wire connected to the router.

Our only recent problem was cable drop-outs on the modem, which the cable company (Comcast) solved when it replace the 25 year-old existing cable to the house with new coax.

Harry C.

If you are extremely lucky. The OxyMoron of the year is "Symantec Support" Can't talk to anyone without paying - and to get anyone who knows anything takes a miracle. I will NOT use Norton Internet Security - period. Only Symantec problem I use (under duress) is PC Anywhere.