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Random wireless internet dropping after VPN added

relaxdad1

Recently I had to replace my current Actiontec router. Ever since I swapped routers, my wife's Laptop will randomly loose Internet connectivity - NOT Wireless ("Local" is still working). A call to Verizon was little help. My daughter came home for Spring Break and I added her to the new router. It worked fine. Yesterday I had to add her school VPN and afterwards I noticed that the wireless connection was showing as "Local" (no Internet) however I actually did have internet access. My laptop has no VPNs and it never has issues. Therefore I was wondering if the VPN was causing the problem. The one on my wife's laptop is a standard Cisco offering.

The router is an Actiontec MI424WR-GEN2.

Any thoughts?

Steve

Comments

Anthony_VZ

It wouldn't show an internet connection. A VPN is a protected tunnel between your computer and the VPN server so other devices can see the traffic. That is normal for the connection to show only local. You adding the VPN would not have caused your other trouble with the local area connection. The way to see if its a problem with the router or her computer, use another computer to plug in with the same cord your wifes is using to see if the connection drops on the other computer plugged in your wifes place.

smith6612

As Anthony pointed out, VPNs on Vista and Win7 machines often do not play nice with the internal routine of checking for Internet access. It's the way the VPN software will interact with the operating system when connected which causes this check to fail, how it bases things on Proxies and Addressing. But as long as your Daughter's laptop isn't losing connection and continues to have Internet access, it's perfectly fine.

Whenever I fire up Cisco VPN on my company computer to access the Corporate Network, it does the same thing. It returns back to "Internet access" once the VPN is shut down. Regardless of this, the work machine can be hardwired or wireless to my network at home and it will not disconnect.

relaxdad1

Thanks for the responses. On my wife's laptop (Vista) wireless internet randomly drops; most of the time the wireless status is "Local" but yesterday I noticed that although it said I had Internet connectivity, Google (or anthing else) would not come up.

Please note that when I connect using my neighbor's Cox wireless, there is no problem. Hardwire connections are fine as well. Also there was no problem with the previous router. The latter leads me to believe that either the Vz guy who originally installed the router set some parameter or this router has a problem and needs to be replaced.

Thanks.

Steve

smith6612

Stupid question, but since Wired connectivity works fine, what kind of Wireless security are you using on the FiOS router? Is it WEP by any chance? Back when Vista was new, 2007-2008, there were some issues with the wireless drivers on Vista machines that caused issues with WEP Security with some routers and wireless radios. I'm taking a bet that if you were giving a Rev F, G, or I Wireless router from the tech that forcing the router to only use WPA2-PSK AES Encryption and to never touch WEP might in fact solve the problem. Perhaps updating the Wireless drivers on the Vista machine may help as well since it sounds like that's the only machine having issues.

There isn't much a Verizon tech can do to goof up a Wireless connection, though. They can make it perform worse, but not make it disconnect randomly...

relaxdad1

Yes it is WEP and yes the Vista laptops were both purchased in the timeframe you mentioned. Last night I deleted the wireless network entry of the laptop, cycled the router, and then added the network back. It hasn't gone away yet. I hate to redo the security because that affects all my PCs but if it happens again, I'll check for a newer driver.

BTW - the original router installed by the Vz tech worked fine in this regard. My point was that he may have set a parameter that kept my problem from ever happening, although the tech on the phone didn't seem to know of any parameters other than locking it to a particular channel, which we did.

Thanks again.

Steve

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