(Topic name was 'Shoddy equipment')

I bought a Vigor 2110n off the back of PC Pro waxing lyrical about the brand's reliability and yet my experience has been little short of terrible.

I've consistently had problems with wi-fi dropouts on this equipment despite having ensured I've selected a wireless channel that is not competing with anything else in the vicinity of my house. I've tried several channels where contention isn't an issue and yet I frequently find that my laptops/desktop often lose their connection for 20 or so seconds.

I've tried all sorts of fixes and yet the only common component that consistently gives me grief is my 2110n. I've recently tried upgrading my device's firmware and all it's done is open another can of worms. Firstly I went to 3.3.5.1 and I found that the wireless menu was disappearing from the admin web page altogether! Seriously shoddy quality control. So, where do I go from here? If there are links to older firmwares on the draytek.co.uk website so that I can roll back to a firmware where I can, at least, administer the device, they aren't very well advertised.

What next, then? Oh? There's an entirely separate website at draytek.com, apparently. And it's listing 3.3.6 as the latest firmware revision for the 2110n! So, which is right? .co.uk or .com?

Given that I'm pretty much stuffed on 3.3.5.1 anyway as I can't administer my wi-fi any more, I take the plunge and go to 3.3.6. I've now lost all of my config, port forwarding, dhcp reservations, VPN config etc. as I've no confidence that loading an old config will cause the devuce to operate correctly so, once I've entered all of the settings once again manually, what happens? Yep, that's right, the wi-fi is still rubbish. At least once an hour, one or more of my connected devices loses its connection to the router.

Really disappointed.

Have you got a wireless DECT home phone near the router? also try moving it just a few inches can make a big difference. Sounds like interference to me.

I have a DECT phone in the same room, yes, but not next to the router. I also have a baby monitor in the house, a microwave oven in the kitchen and a wireless doorbell. None of these items are 'near' the router, though, and they didn't affect the Belkin device that I bought the Draytek unit to replace. None of the items are physically situated between the router and the networked devices either.

As I say, I've tried several different channels at both ends of the available wi-fi spectrum, and in between, with no discernible improvement. I don't believe that it's interference as it's not consistent or frequent enough and does not coincide with use of any of the devices in my house which are around the same part of the spectrum.

I'm currently using channel 11 and my laptop is reporting 62% signal strength. My DECT phone is on, but not in use. My baby monitor is on and in use. My microwave is on but not in use. My doorbell has batteries in but is not ringing. With none of this changing, to go from 62% signal strength, to nothing, to working again 20 seconds later is very unlikely to be some interference in my opinion.

Thanks for the tip though, anyway - any advice gratefully received. I raised a support call with Draytek last night. It'll be interesting to see what they have to say about the inconsistent firmware revision and buggy menu item - none of this inspires me with any confidence when it comes to their quality control.

Have you tried upgrading your wireless computer's wireless drivers?

I have 3 different laptops (a Viliv, 2 different model Dells), a desktop (home built using individually bought components, an iPad,a Y-Cam wireless webcam and 2 HTC mobile phones. All are running the latest firmware.

I experience the problem on all 3 laptops, the desktop and the iPad. I don't know if the webcam has the same problem as it's not a ' web client' per se. The mobile phones have not exhibited the problem but I don't know that the loss of wireless connectivity for 20 or 30 seconds would be something I would discern on an Android phone as you don't get the system tray alert and it can always fall back to a 3G signal if the wifi is momentarily unavailable.

All of my devices are running the latest firmware and drivers.

Have you tried using just ONE laptop with all other equipment turned off? (Theory; sometimes one device can upset all).