There are many many possible causes here and unless you employ a few tools, you could end up trying this and trying that in the blind hope that something gets better.
Here are a few suggestions, you may want to try some of them.
First, the frequency band that WiFi uses, is also shared by an large (and growing) number of wireless devices, doorbells, CCTV cameras, video senders, garage door openers, shop sliding doors etc etc. So you will need to see the state of other nearby users.
Depending upon your local terrain, your location may be affected by any other wireless device up to 300m away.
If you have access to (beg/borrow) a frequency counter, you can see the occupancy of this band (I just got one from ebay for around 70 quid) these can also be used for testing rf remote controls, keyfobs etc.
Unexplained drops in connection are also a sign of packet injection type attacks, where an intruder causes your existing connection to drop while monitoring the re-connection exchanges and using this data to reconstruct your packets as part of a break in.
Luckily, you can survey your desired location for other WiFi users very easily.
Tools such as Kismet will monitor all of the channels in scan mode and keep a list of nearby wifi stations along with enough data for you to make informed decisions.
Kismet will also show any attempts to associate with your AP along with other local APs and their clients.
Backtrack2 is a downloadable CD image that is bootable on almost any PC/Laptop and is usable immediately (runs off the CD)
There are a range of WiFi survey tools on this distro.
So these are two ways of looking at the radio band in question, both from a WiFi network and a consumer electronics perspective.
One of these will tell you exactly what is happening in the ether.
If your firewall has logging, take a look at any errors being written at the failure times.
The PCs operating system (windows / linux etc) may also have written error logs for these events.
You could also install a sniffer to capture the packets - see what is happening when the connection is dropped.
That should sort it out for you !
Good Luck
Here are a few suggestions, you may want to try some of them.
First, the frequency band that WiFi uses, is also shared by an large (and growing) number of wireless devices, doorbells, CCTV cameras, video senders, garage door openers, shop sliding doors etc etc. So you will need to see the state of other nearby users.
Depending upon your local terrain, your location may be affected by any other wireless device up to 300m away.
If you have access to (beg/borrow) a frequency counter, you can see the occupancy of this band (I just got one from ebay for around 70 quid) these can also be used for testing rf remote controls, keyfobs etc.
Unexplained drops in connection are also a sign of packet injection type attacks, where an intruder causes your existing connection to drop while monitoring the re-connection exchanges and using this data to reconstruct your packets as part of a break in.
Luckily, you can survey your desired location for other WiFi users very easily.
Tools such as Kismet will monitor all of the channels in scan mode and keep a list of nearby wifi stations along with enough data for you to make informed decisions.
Kismet will also show any attempts to associate with your AP along with other local APs and their clients.
Backtrack2 is a downloadable CD image that is bootable on almost any PC/Laptop and is usable immediately (runs off the CD)
There are a range of WiFi survey tools on this distro.
So these are two ways of looking at the radio band in question, both from a WiFi network and a consumer electronics perspective.
One of these will tell you exactly what is happening in the ether.
If your firewall has logging, take a look at any errors being written at the failure times.
The PCs operating system (windows / linux etc) may also have written error logs for these events.
You could also install a sniffer to capture the packets - see what is happening when the connection is dropped.
That should sort it out for you !
Good Luck
