Wireless Internet connectitvity

My wife has an Acer laptop running Windows Vista. We installed a wireless router from AT&T. For the first few months, it worked fine. Then gradually, the internet disconnected and finally, Vista could no longer detect the wireless connection. We called tech support and got the problem fixed. Then it happened again–no internet connection. After a four hour session with tech support, the technician concluded that the modem was broken. We exchanged the modem and everything was fine. Now the same thing is happening again. Somehow, Vista gradually "erases" the modem software and we have limited internet access. what's happening here? Johnny

Hi there this sounds odd. Is your wife downloading anything (maybe she thinks its legit ) but it's trashing the wireless connection? It seems odd that it seems to erase the software as you say. Got any more info i can go by? thanks, 'Bob

Greetings theort143 Sorry to hear about your wireless issue. I have to jump in here to help clear up a possible misconception, and give you a path to follow. Both the supplied modem from the ISP and your laptop are nothing but electronic appliances. Your tv, microwave, dvd player all fall into that catagory. Durable? define durable… It would be no surprise to have any one of them to fail and stop working at anytime. Some appliances just last longer than others. The fix is you just go and get another one to replace it. Not unusual to hear that you may have to do that several times on particular makes, models or types of appliance. Happens everyday and keeps appliance mfgs in business. Things just break, dont spend too much time trying to figure out why. You experienced that once with the modem. Your computer is not trashing the modem. Most likely the ISP supplied modem has failed again. Start with a quick check is to see if your computer will connect to someone elses wireless modem or have someone else try to connect to yours. If yours connects to somebody elses modem, then your ISP provided modem has failed. If somebody elses computer can connect your ISP supplied modem then you need to troubleshoot your laptop. Could be just some settings, or you have a failed part of the appliance. Your first thing I would do is have your ISP will replace the modem again. Now to WHY you are going through ISP modems might be a simple as it is getting hot and making the components fail slowly, it got hit by a powersurge and failing slowly, or just a poorly made device using substandard components produced by the least cost bidder. You can polish a Cow pie, but then all you have is a polished Cow pie. Only so much you can do, keep em cool, put them on at least a surge protector. Reset em or cycle the power. The misconception part is that the Computer is erasing or trashing the software in the ISP modem. You personally have to get involved 99 out of 100 times to mess with the firmware of the ISP provided modem and you know about it. Like putting in the supplied CD to the ISP router and changing settings from defaults. You reported it was a slowly getting worse problem, your words Gradually. So get the basic troubleshooting out of the way with connecting your laptop to another source or trying a known working laptop to connect to your ISP modem. Report those results to your ISP tech. Regards Kaz