Sudden change in wireless range

Question

I've had Fios for TV and Internet in my home for about 10 months now. No problems. I keep the router — the standard MI424WR — in an office on the ground floor. Two days ago, during the bad snowstorm, I am online (Toshiba Satellite running Windows XP) and watching TV upstairs when my service is interrupted — very briefly. My TV programming went out maybe three times in the span of a minute. The longest outage was about 10 seconds. The power stayed on, just the programming went off. Then the TV comes back on and everything is fine. But I notice that I can't navigate the Internet. "Internet Explorer cannot display the Web page."
So I go downstairs and turn the modem off for a few seconds and turn it back on. I come upstairs and restart my computer. That usually works, but this time I get the "limited or no connectivity" message, although it is telling me the signal strength is excellent. I try retyping my WEP key, unplugging the router, resetting the router — nothing. On my television, I have the wireless Roku box that streams Netflix movies. I turn that on. That still works. And I can still pick up WiFi on my phone. So I'm thinking the problem is with my computer. The desktop that my router is hooked up to downstairs still works, so I spend a couple hours looking up Web solutions with no success. Then I bring the laptop downstairs. I use a cable to plug it in to the router. I'm back online. In fact, it I even lose the "limited or no connectivity" message. I unplug the cable and I'm still connected.
A few minutes and a couple experiments later and I finally realize that I stay connected wirelessly as long as I am very close to the router. If I stray too far, I get "limited or no connectivity" and if I wander back, I reconnect. Now I don't know what to think. I've never had any problem like this before. And to confuse me even more, when I take a close look at the settings on the wireless Roku box, it says my signal strength is "poor." Prior to this incident, I don't think I had ever taken notice of that so I don't know if anything has changed.
So to make a long story even longer, I guess my question is: Does this sound like a problem with a setting on the router or with the computer?

Answer 1

You can try changing the channel on  the router. The best channels to use are 1, 6,11. To change the wireless channel on the router: log into the management page of the router, click on wireless settings, click on basic security settings, go to option #3 and choose the channel you want, then go to the bottom of the page and click save. You may want to try all 3 channels to see which one gets the best signal.
"If your problem has been solved, please mark it as such. Don't forget to hand out your Kudos!"