Wireless network drops off at random.

Have a setup with two PCs, the client has a Belkin USB wireless adaptor and the host has a DSE WLAN IEEE 802.11b. Both PCs are running Windows 2000 Pro, and the host is running ICS to provide internet to the client.
When the network is up and running it works well. Both PCs can talk to each other and share files etc, and the client can access the internet.

However, for no apparent reason, the network just stops at random. Normally what happens is I will go and look at the wireless adaptor utility on the client, and do a site survey. It shows no presence of a wireless signal from the host PC.
So it appears that it is the host that is dropping.
I did some searching on the net about this and I found a similar problem that someone else was having, they reckon they fixed it by enabling wireless authentication 802.1x on the client. I did this and it didn't seem to make much difference.
When the network is up and running it's great - it's just when it drops off at random that it's a pain.

Sounds very much like a hardware problem.

Do you have acces to equipment to swap out to isolate it to a particular unit.

Thanks Dellae, that's pretty much the conclusion I have come to as well. I'm going to see if I can score another wireless adaptor for the host PC and see what happens then. Cheers.

I have a similar problem with my Links WAG54G dropping internet connection. I have to reset it remotely or just turn it off and on again and its back up... Not sure if it is hardware or IHUG!

Hi Supertrouper

First the basics
Try reinstalling the drivers/update drivers.
Check your protocols (TCP/IP, IPv6, Network monitor driver, Client for microsoft networks, QoS packet sheduler, file and print sharing)
Check your windows error log file to see if it found any problems at the time that the device disconnected.
On the host machine ping 127.0.0.1 when you are getting no signal and if it comes back timed out or with an average time greater than 0ms then you have a hardware problem.

Other options
Try moving the card to a different PCI slot and check that your computer automaticaly allocates IRQ numbers to the devices.

Like Dellae said it sounds like a hardware problem.

Hope this helps

I was having similar problems with my Sony Vaio VGC-LT1M. The machine would drop off the network and needed to be switched off and on again - a simple reboot would not work. Sometimes it would just reboot itself part way thru a download, especially when updating tv listings from DigiGuide UK. It would also do it when transferring a file over the local network or viewing a MPEG video file. I have an Atheros chip in a LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g PCI-E Adapter. Tried all sorts of things, updating driver etc. What seems to have worked for me is switching off the QoS Packet Scheduler - double click network icon in task bar, click properties and untick the QoS box. Hope this helps - it did it for me!