[Queencallipygos]

Hello all,

Let me first issue the disclaimer that I am a little timid about computer trouble -- my understanding of how it works is only a few steps above "the internet is a series of tubes." I know some things, but also am aware of how much I don't know; so you may have to dumb answers down in a few places.

Now then.

I just a few days ago, within the last week, finally got a new computer; a laptop with a wireless card installed. It walked me through setting up my internet connection (it had software for my ISP, Earthlink, already pre-installed and I just needed to activate it -- the only trouble I had with the installation was that I turned Norton's firewall on first, and the firewall security level was set so strong it was actually preventing me from accessing the ENTIRE INTERNET, so I toned that down). After all that, I was able to connect fine -- get email, surf the web, download Ad-Aware, etc.

Except.

Periodically, and temporarily, my Internet connection will just stop working. I do not touch anything in the settings -- I don't fiddle with the firewall, I don't play with the mail account settings, I do nothing. It'll just...stop.

At first I thought it was a because I was connecting to a weak signal; I had planned on using my roommate's router signal, but I can't connect to it (that's another problem; I'll get to that in a minute) and she doesn't know how to fix that, so I've been using someone else's unsecured signal. In one room of our apartment, the signal's low, but about 20 feet to the left, the signal's strong. So I just started staying in that room to go online. But this still happens.

What I mean by "it just stops working" is that I get "page cannot be found" errors for every web page, and I get "we cannot find the server" errors for my email program (which is Outlook 2003). I wrote down exactly what the server settings should be for my email, and they are exactly as they should be.

So one minute I'll be surfing, and then the next -- it just stops. I'll get the email program stops recognizing the server, and the "cannot find page" errors keep happening for everything -- even things like Google.

But after some time passes - could be a few minutes, could be a few hours -- I'll try again, and it'll work just fine again. One minute I'll try to access a page and get the "cannot find page" errors, and the next I'll try again and Google will pop up just fine and I can check email just fine.

It's almost as if someone somewhere else is turning a computer off and on in between; I'm wondering whether that may have something to do with it (I have no idea whose signal this is I'm using; I'm seeing about ten signals all in my area, and a couple were unsecured, and until we can figure out how to connect me to my roommate's router I'm using this. This could even be the hotspot in the cafe across the street.) But every time this happens, I can show that I am connecting just fine to the wireless signal itself. I try disconnecting and reconnecting to that channel on my wireless program, and I can connect fine to the channel itself. It's that channel not being able to then connect to the web/email that's the problem. If it were someone turning off the computer, would I still be showing their signal as on?

I've run virus scans, and nothing. I have checked and rechecked all the settings, and each time these incidents happen, I have done nothing to precipitate them, and each time they end, I also have done nothing to precipitate them.

as for the trouble I have connecting to my roommate's signal -- when her signal is on, I try connecting to it, my wireless program gets stuck in the "waiting to connect..." screen for about a minute, and then after a minute it gives up and drops the attempt.

....what the heck do I do?