Same model of wireless adapter in both laptops? Some wireless devices do things like drop connection now and then, the switching off and on for the wireless sounds like it may be this.

Thanks.
They are both Toshibas, so it's possible. I'll have a look.
Assuming that is the cause, how can I overcome it, other than buying new laptops of course?!

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Some of you may be aware of having to do this with Sky Boxes and the like; or defragging a hard disk etc. Defragging can physically harm the typical HDD, so should not be done very often; but is recommended on a periodic basis.

Defragging HDD harmful, new one on me but always willing to learn ....... can you elaborate please?

Traditional HDDs consisting of continually rotating discs of magnetic material and "pick-up" heads moving out and in radially to access the specific locations of widely scattered data, leads to various forms of wear and microscopic damage.

Cumulatively, this can lead to HDDs "wearing out".


Defragging/defragmenting requires relatively intensive movements of the heads, thus the rate of wear during such operations is significantly greater than in normal operations.

--------------------------

http://www.pctechguide.com/hard-disks/hard-disk-hard...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_platter

Note that the there are other heads below and moving in time with the obviously-visible top one, so all platters in that HDD are "at risk", although the data required may be on the top platter only.

Keep in mind that particularly once an HDD has been in use for some time, the data making up any one file is recorded in short segments, scattered almost anywhere on the platters; and that there are separate indexing areas on the platters giving the location of those segments.

HDDs are surprisingly complex devices.

---------------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMWG3fwiEU

Apart from the obvious rapid "flicking" of the head assembly, the platters/disc are rotating at around 7,000 revolutions per minute.

Find out if there are any driver updates and/or try disabling power save modes for the wireless adapter

I leave mine on all the time. Several reasons.
My mobile phone does not get a signal in the front of the house , my last phone had UMA which connected via WiFi. New phone does not so I have a VOIP line active on the mobile, which needs wifi.
I'm often ill and confined to bed, would not be able to pop downstairs to switch the superhub on and off so I can use my laptop upstairs.
We have a smart TV which should be getting updates via the wired cat5, which needs the router to be on when it does this at around 3am.
The more devices you have connected, the more you'll need to leave the rourter on for them.

Thank you eckiedoo for your most excellent reply.

I thought we were referring to the Superhub 2.

The SuperHub 1, when I used it was dreadful. The wireless often locked up, you would try to connect to the WiFi but it would fail - the only solution was a reboot.

If you set a custom SSID or custom setup - the SuperHub would routinely reset to factory settings and forget all of the settings entered. This was highly annoying.

WiFi range - lets not discuss.

I cannot believe VM have customers still using the SuperHub, frankly it is dreadful.
& I don't expect much from a router, I do not need any fancy features. The Sky Hub is a 2.4Ghz only device, not very advanced, but I would speak highly of it as it never crashes, works flawlessly etc.

HomeHub - likewise never had an issue.

I never tried the SuperHub 2 to see if that corrected issues?

Overall, the superhub cannot be left on 24/7 - it crashes too regularly for that. You'll end up rebooting it routinely. I think I had about 5 of them during my Virginmedia lifetime.

If I am honest that Superhub put me off Virginmedia for life. I would rather have a 2Mbps connection with 100% reliability, with a router that does not need touching than be forced onto a VM connection and deal with that again. The speed would not be worth it. Luckily I have FTTC on Sky and BT now

Had they provided me a router that worked flawlessly I am 99.9999% sure I would still be a virginmedia customer now.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 25-May-15 16:02:29)

my SH2 is terrible as of late the range has shrunk and it barely covers the room I am in. Other routers do OK

I leave the SH2 on 24/7 as well as my mac (just sleep the display) as it's better for them. The SH2 is covered by VM anyway and the Mac is covered not only by apples 3 years care but also their 6 year warranty that very few people actually know about.

So dosen't bother me if I leave it on. As for electric. My whole house and all that I use uses less than £20 per month

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Find out if there are any driver updates and/or try disabling power save modes for the wireless adapter

I find that there are no driver updates available.

However, it occurs to me that it is unlikely to be anything to do with our computers as the problem always occurs to both at the same time.
Unless they have some sort of strange means of communicating with each other (!), I'm sure it must be the router or possibly some problem further along the connection from Virgin.

Edited by deleted (Tue 26-May-15 21:34:59)