Need Network Help

[cliaz]

This is the damniest thing I’ve ever witnessed before and not only am I stumped as to what the problem is and how to fix it but one of my CCIEs has no clue either. I’m hoping someone here may know because my ISP refuses to acknowledge it may be something on their end and nothing has changed on my end.

 

Background:

I work primarily from home. I have time warner cable as my ISP and for home phone. From the Motorola modem I have a Linksys wireless router that has WEP 128 bit configured. All 14 devices in our house have been using the wireless network without issues (outside of the standard outage ISPs encounter sometimes). On Tuesday around 5PM my work VPN dropped and I couldn’t establish a connection. I went and check all of the devices on the 2nd floor of the house and all devices could not see the wireless broadcast.

 

I went downstairs into our smart box room and checked the master modem (where phone and internet come in and are spliced off) which was online and fine and the home phones worked without any issues. So I went upstairs, unplug power from the wireless router, the cable modem, then went downstairs and power cycled the master modem, back up stairs and powered up the cable model and then finally the wireless router.

 

I go back and check my work laptop, my personal laptop and the ipad and each device will see the wireless broadcast for a second or two then it drops off the wireless network list. At times when it stays there I attempt to connect to it but it instantly says “Connection failed” and then cant see the broadcast for a few minutes. I figured the wireless was finally dying so I buy a new Cisco 3200 wireless router, hook everything up – brand new out of the box and completely open for anyone to access it but all 14 of my devices did the same thing as with the older wireless router.

 

So then I do direct Ethernet runs to my work and personal laptops, power cycle everything and neither device has access to the internet via browser. So, for sh*ts and giggles I did a ping to yahoo and all devices return the ping in great time but still cannot reach out to the internet. So I call up the ISP and go through 9 of the worst people to troubleshoot a connection that I have ever dealt with. I had to do the basic power cycling and all of that and each call ended with them verifying nothing is wrong on their end.

 

All of my devices can access neighboring wireless broadcasts with no problem but even when I put the new wireless router 6 inches away from my work laptop, it doesn’t see the broadcast (keeps flapping on and off in the wireless network list) and all of the remaining 13 devices has the same issue (can see and connect to neighboring broadcasts but not to one where the router is within 3 feet of the device).

 

I’ve done all of the layer 1 and layer 2 troubleshooting I can think of, all of the wireless cards are working correctly and a hard run Ethernet line provides me with internet when I’m working but still stalls a few times a day and my VPN drops.

 

I am simply lost as to what is causing the wireless broadcast from two different routers to not show up as stable to my home devices and where I cant even grab and attempt to connect to the broadcast. It makes no sense at all, nothing has changed, there are no issues anywhere except within my house.

 

Help!

[lennykravitz2004]

1) stop using WEP. start using TKIP/AES. MUCH more secure. WEP is better than nothing, but that's like locking your front door and closing your windows, but not locking your windows. almost all devices these days include settings for TKIP/AES.

 

2) what frequency is your wireless using? could there be a new phone within range of your wireless network which is interfering? this seems most likely to me. maybe a neighbor has a new "something" and it's interfering? maybe ask a few neighbors if they recently got any new phones 2.5 Ghz, or something else.

 

3) try changing wireless channels.

 

4) can you connect to the innernets with your laptop/pc connected directly to the modem?

 

5) try unplugging the router from the modem, set up the router without a connection to the internet. set up your wireless network and see if the problem persists then too. this should/could eliminate the modem as the source issue, as you'll basically have a home network with no connection to the outside world.

 

6) do you have an extra usb wireless receiver you could plug in and use to see if a new MAC address is recognized and treated the same as your other devices?