kevin

it worked, the key was dowloading from offline instead of online, I got the same comment on the net.

so thanks again

I have an old laptop thats reached the end of its life.

Needs to go in the bin.

Is it enough (security wise) to remove and smash up the hard drive, or are there other gismos inside that can hold onto info?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Yep, that's all you need to destroy. Might be worth taking out the RAM just in case you can use it for another machine.

Thats a good idea, thanks Harry.

I've started to get this error in CHROME - just me?

"Error 103 (net::ERR_CONNECTION_ABORTED): Unknown error."

Am running Chrome with XP & Vista. No probs so far.

Thanks Harry - it started yesterday afternoon and it appears to be (for me) Chrome orientated on W8 and XP.

There are quite a few recent references on the net, none conclusive.

I have a new Netgear wireless router at work which gives a good signal, however, if more than one wireless device tries to access it, it struggles. Can anyone shed any light on this? It's plugged in to a network socket, and is remote from the modem.

"....and is remote from the modem". Why do you have a modem as well as a router?

Floss,

Check the setting for the lease duration first - the leases need to be non-expiring. Then try assigning static IP addresses for laptops (or PCs using wireless), and just allow DHCP for mobile phones and other small hand held devices.

Also, if you're using 802.11n devices, mixing n with g has been known to cause a problem. Try disabling it and just using 802.11g.

We're always getting a problem whenever my son comes home from uni with his laptop and tries to connect through DHCP.

Harry,

Floss is probably on Virgin. They're *not normal*. :o)

Yes - we want 'normal' virgins!

Betcha do!

Thanks Harry & Hils.

Hils is correct - we are Virgin, and they don't do wireless modems. Also, the area we want wi-fi in is a long way from the modem.

Your point about n & g signals is interesting as we have exactly the same problem connecting my son's laptop when he comes home from Uni.

I'll give all those a try. We've just started using an iPad at work as well. Does that count as a small hand held?

I presume that your Virgin WiFi is via a cable superhub modem and you have Virgin TV. We have Virgin and the WiFi is fantastic. When we pull up in the car in the side side street portable devices connect. My son picks up the WiFi at the bus stop 50 yards down the road.

You might change the channel number. If you have an android device or iPhone/iPad you can download a free app that will show you the traffic on the various channels. Then you van pick one that is not congested.

No TV. This is a business broadband connection, so the modem looks pretty cheap & tacky - but they won't supply me with another one - say there's nothing wrong with the current one even though it's a few years old.

Floss,

If you can assign the iPod a static IP and get it off DHCP, then I would do so. Also, in my earlier post, I should have said get all PCs and laptops onto static IPs, not just the wireless ones.

Thanks Hils. I'll see what I, with my limited skills, can do.

Floss,

I asked my husband about this last night because it's a problem we had some time back and I wasn't 100% sure that what I had said was correct.

To assign a static IP address to each of your machines see here. That link only covers Windows machines - my husband said that he left the iPod Touches, iPhones, Galaxies, etc on DHCP because he couldn't be bothered to go through all that malarky as well. I would have thought that they can be assigned a static IP though because we had the Sky man out to look at our HD box a couple of months back and we got him to assign a static IP for the On Demand gizmo.

The static IP pool that we use on the servers, PCs and laptops is from 192.168.0.50 and upwards.

On the router homepage we then assigned a DHCP pool which was outside the range of anything used by any of the machines using static IPs - namely 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.20. That way the only conflicts that could possibly occur would be between two mobile devices themselves, and my husband figured that, if it happened, it would be far quicker to restart a mobile phone than to reboot a PC.

After doing all that, my husband seems to think that he reset the wireless mode to allow b,g and n devices and they have all been working OK together since. He also thinks that the issue my son has is that he comes back from uni and downloads torrents which flood the router and the firewall then blocks everything for 20 seconds or so, but he can't be fully sure that's what's doing it.

Capisci?