Member Avatar for mrburningstar

I currently own a laptop and an xbox. My two sisters both own separate laptops and we have a main household computer. Our connection is still really fast with all these, however when my older sister connects her laptop to our modem (a netgear DGN2000) everyone except the main computer disconnects. It is really annoying when im talking to someone or playing on xbox live. We have tried many different "solutions" to problems similar to this on forums but none have worked. Please help :( Its 100% her laptop because it only happens when her laptop is on for like 2 minutes.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rubberman

Dani AI

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reported that when the older sister’s laptop joins the Netgear DGN2000 wireless network, every wireless client except the main desktop drops after a minute or two. correctly raised addressing as a candidate cause; the checklist below focuses on additional, commonly missed causes (rogue DHCP/ICS, virtual adapters, driver or firmware bugs, ARP storms) and gives targeted diagnostics and mitigations.

Recommended diagnostics and quick mitigations:

  • Confirm whether the main desktop is wired. If so, the problem is isolated to the wireless subsystem.
  • Isolate the laptop: power off all other wireless clients and connect only the sister’s laptop plus one test client; observe whether the test client drops. Also test the laptop on a different network (phone tether or another AP) to see if the fault follows the laptop.
  • Inspect the router admin page for the DHCP lease table, attached devices and system logs while reproducing the problem; note repeated reboots, lease churn, or duplicated MAC/IP entries.
  • Check the laptop for Internet Connection Sharing, mobile-hotspot/hosted-network, or virtual adapters (VMware/VirtualBox) that can act as rogue DHCP servers or bridge networks. Common Windows checks:
ipconfig /all
arp -a
netsh wlan show hostednetwork
  • Update the laptop wireless driver and the DGN2000 firmware. Temporarily disable third‑party firewall/security software and any hotspot/bridging tools (Connectify, ICS).
  • If signs point to duplicate MAC/IP or ARP spoofing (rapid MAC/IP changes in router logs), boot the laptop from clean media and run offline malware scans.
  • Short-term: block the laptop’s MAC in the router or change SSID/password to force controlled rejoin. If the router consistently fails when the laptop connects, perform a factory reset (record current ISP/VLAN settings first) and reconfigure.

Collect router logs, timestamps, and the laptop’s adapter details (IP/MAC/driver version) before major changes — those make troubleshooting and any escalation far more efficient.

Member Avatar for rubberman

There are two ways for a computer to connect to a wireless network: 1) dynamic (dhcp) - the router assigns a "temporary" IP address to a specific machine that is connecting to the network, or 2) static, where the computer is configured to use a specific address when connecting to the network. This is often the cause of the types of problems you are expreiencing. You need to verify that your sister's computer is using DHCP addressing instead of static addressing. If not, then go to the computer's TCP/IP settings and change it.

commented: Well said +11
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