question about router

[Kali]

I am brand new to this. in fact, I am keeping my cell modem for another month just in case.

I am on some kind of rural wifi deal where a dish was mounted to the back of my house aimed up at some towers on the mountain. then some kind of coaxial cable runs to the little router thingy with two antennas that stick up about 6 inches. there are two electic connections, one I ssume for the dish and one for it. it has some green lights and seems to work pretty well. I can finally stream the radio station that had moved its tower so I could no longer receive in the house.

My problem: every few days I lose the internet. my computer says it is connected but no access. the little indicator at the lower right of my tool bar has all the bars showing but a little yellow triangle indicates no internet. nothing I do on the computer will help - disconnecting and reconnecting, rebooting, etc.

what works is unplugging the router and plugging it back in. the installer guy told me there was a reset button but that I should not ever push it or I will have to reset everything. I have no clue, received no instructions.

my questions are: why does the connection stay on but I lose access? why does that happen randomly? and is there anything I can do besides the unplug/replug action to fix this?

[Egnever]

1. Call the internet company tell them the router is constantly requiring a reboot.

You need it replaced most likely.

It is possible you have malware that is affecting it but chances are the router is just faulty.

[Kali]

5. Probably the best bet, thanks.

Wasn't sure if it was me or not.

[Galileo126]

2. Sounds like a disconnect between dish modem and wifi

There should be a modem which converts the dish signal from the mountain to something the wifi box can read. So, it would seem that the dish modem is loosing it's communication with the wifi box.

Resetting the wifi box tends to re-establish that link with the dish modem. However, if this happens often, you either have a dodgy wifi box (they are pretty cheap now), dodgy dish modem (if it's brand new, probably not the case), or a shaky wire between the dish modem and the wifi box.

I don't have a dish modem, but I do have a cable modem. The same thing happened to me a couple of days ago. Resetting the wifi box (unplug/plug in power) didn't re-establish connection. So, I rebooted the cable modem, then rebooted the wifi box, and connection was re-established. I haven't had to reboot the cable modem in months, but it is sometimes needed from time to time.

Try rebooting the dish modem, then the wifi box (in that order).

Yes - don't press the "reset" button you stated. That resets the security code needed to sign into your wifi box/network. If you do, you'll need the new password and give that to your wireless network monitor. Only change this if you feel you've been hacked, but usually it is an 18-letter code and pretty tough to hack.

Hope it helps... but you can always ask your ISP folks and say WTF??

[Kali]

6. I would probably do all this if it was old

but since we just got it I think they can come fix it. especially because they sold me on a business connection that was going to have a guaranteed speed, but of course when the guy got out here they couldn't do that and I just got a slightly upgraded residential deal.

the downloads speed was OK but not the upload (not that I need that but they wouldn't do the deal for the download)

[Thor_MN]

3. It's also possible that you are losing connection to the network tower.

Not your local wifi, the external connection from dish to tower. Could be RF interference, obstructions blocking the signal, rain, etc.

Call the provider, but you are probably going to wind up putter your router on a power strip to make it easier to reboot. My sister had a similar arrangement where the city had this type of WiFi. I was not impressed with the speed or reliability...

[Kali]

7. would that problem be so easily fixed with the unplug-replug maneuver?

I now have unlimited data and the speed is about the same when streaming radio as it was without on my cell modem. If I am not streaming the radio this seems way faster than I had before.

Understand I just got off dial up a few years ago, so my expectations aren't real high.

[Ptah]

4. Is it the Border Patrol helicopter?

[Kali]

8. !

maybe the creature http://www.democraticunderground.com/12141123

[Ptah]

9. Has The Thing escaped?

[Kali]

10. You know...

I may have to suggest that the next time he calls...maybe it is The Thing? Mystery of the Desert.

The other day he said an all white dog or coyote was chasing it. He called because he saw somebody driving around - it was some bug collectors looking for moths but then he mentioned the white dog. Hard to have a conversation with the guy, have normal and half totally batshit.

[csziggy]

11. Since you mention creatures, here's a possibility

When I first got satellite TV, we'd have outages - sometimes because of rain and sometimes we couldn't figure it out. So one night when the service went out for a few hours, I called tech support. We reset stuff, checked connections, did everything the tech could come up with.

Finally he suggested checking the dish itself, which at that time was just outside the back door on our deck. So I opened the door, only to have a lizard jump on my head and surprise me enough I went "OH!" The tech wanted to know what had happened and I explained it was an attack lizard.

Then I shone a flashlight onto the dish and totally lost it. I was laughing hysterically. The tech was freaked, I think he thought I was being attacked. Once I calmed down I explained - there was a little tree frog sitting on the LNB.

It was a cool night and the little frog had discovered that the LNB was slightly warmer than the ambient temperature and was just as comfy as he could be. I got out a confuse a cat stick (an old horse longe whip) and knocked the frog off and we had signal. From then until we moved the dish to a higher position, I kept the confuse a cat stick handy and checked for frogs every time we lost our signal - which was about twice a month from the frogs.

At the end of the call the tech wanted to know if we lived in a jungle - I told him close, we lived in Florida.

I know the temps are not cool where you are but could some creature be sitting on the dish, blocking the signal?