What's up with my wireless router?

Recently (meaning a month or two ago. ), I bought a laptop. My old computer was slow and bad in general. Well, I'm on the Internet from a wireless connection to the router that the home computer's hooked up to. Well, once in a while, the router decides to quit working and redirects me to a "site" programmed into the router saying that it fails at life. Sometimes, it'll fix itself as soon as I visit that page, but, more often than not, it won't. Also my Internet will sometimes run slowly or not at all. I tried deleting the cookies and everything, but it's still slow. Sometimes, it won't even let me post! D: Halp! What could the problem be?

The router is a 2Wire router, the laptop I'm on is Vista running on a Compaq Presario Notebook PC, and the slow home computer is XP running on something I'm to lazy to check.

Everytime it does that, there is a tiny little hole on the back, side, or front. Use a tiny needle [or anything that can fit that wont scratch anything] and press the button.


It's the reset button.

Everytime it does that, there is a tiny little hole on the back, side, or front. Use a tiny needle [or anything that can fit that wont scratch anything] and press the button.


It's the reset button.

*facepalm* I didn't even think of that! 

EDIT:  I tried it, and it seems that it worked. Thank you.

You're Welcome!

Let me give you a technical explaination of the problem and a more permanent way to fix this:

Routers run software, like computers. Usually they run on linux.

A router is made to serve lots of different internet connections and clients, and thus needs alot of different configuration files.

Aside of that, it also happens that hackers/scripts will try to hack your router by sending a DoS attack to your router. (Denial of Service). In these cases, it can happen that your router software crashes.

You can turn off the router or reset it to get it working again. A more permanent solution often is updating the firmware. Do note, once you update the firmware, you loose all the settings and your router needs to be setup again. So make sure you either know how to setup your router, or first write down the settings. Especially the WAN settings and the WiFi settings.

Usually these updates have better protection against DoS attacks, and fixes for different configurations have been added.

Let me give you a technical explaination of the problem and a more permanent way to fix this:

Routers run software, like computers. Usually they run on linux.

A router is made to serve lots of different internet connections and clients, and thus needs alot of different configuration files.

Aside of that, it also happens that hackers/scripts will try to hack your router by sending a DoS attack to your router. (Denial of Service). In these cases, it can happen that your router software crashes.

You can turn off the router or reset it to get it working again. A more permanent solution often is updating the firmware. Do note, once you update the firmware, you loose all the settings and your router needs to be setup again. So make sure you either know how to setup your router, or first write down the settings. Especially the WAN settings and the WiFi settings.

Usually these updates have better protection against DoS attacks, and fixes for different configurations have been added.

Wow, thanks. But Evil's suggestion worked all the same. :3

Let me give you a technical explaination of the problem and a more permanent way to fix this:

Spoiler: LPChip's explanation (click to show/hide)

Routers run software, like computers. Usually they run on linux.

A router is made to serve lots of different internet connections and clients, and thus needs alot of different configuration files.

Aside of that, it also happens that hackers/scripts will try to hack your router by sending a DoS attack to your router. (Denial of Service). In these cases, it can happen that your router software crashes.

You can turn off the router or reset it to get it working again. A more permanent solution often is updating the firmware. Do note, once you update the firmware, you loose all the settings and your router needs to be setup again. So make sure you either know how to setup your router, or first write down the settings. Especially the WAN settings and the WiFi settings.

Usually these updates have better protection against DoS attacks, and fixes for different configurations have been added.

It's nice to get such a coherent explanation - I've figured out how to fix similar problems before, but never really known why it was happening. Thanks, LPChip!

You're welcome.

Its my job, so I thought, why not just share my knowledge too?

You're welcome.

Its my job, so I thought

I thought you made music

I thought you made music

I program, make music, do art, photograph, manage websites and what not, but those are my hobbies. For my job, I'm an Application Manager in the role of a support desk.