Internet connection drops intermittently after 10.4.3 update
I connect via the iBook's Airport Extreme card to a Netgear 802.11g router set to broadcast and receive g and b signals. There seems to be no problem maintaining the network connection but I have very frustrating connection problems to the outside world.
At times every other web page call returns the Safari message "You are not connected to the internet" Refreshing the page a few times resumes the connection and the page displays. Then the next page will return the error again. This problem is intermittent. Currently the connection seems to be working well, at times at least 50% of the page calls fail reporting the not connected message. At all times Airport status shows a full four bars.
A ping from the shell to say, google.com reports 100% packet loss until the connection is restored. I'm sure therefore it's not Safari. My mail app, Entourage, is having similar connectivity problems. I think pings to the router or other machines look fine, but I have no idea if I've just been lucky pinging them when the connection is ok. I have a feeling this is just an internet problem. Somehow the network is fine but it's stumbling over the internet connection only.
There are four other machines connected to the network, all experiencing no problems. This one, my grandad G4 533 Panther machine using Airport, a PowerBook G4 using Airport Extreme, a laptop PC whith whoknowswhat wireless and a wired always on Linux machine. The router, a Netgear DG834G, while not being the most reliable piece of hardware, is up and working fine. I updated the firmware to version 3.01.25 as part of my troubleshooting process. This made no difference.
Anybody have any similar experiences post 10.4.3? Anybody got any suggestions for troubleshooting?
Thanks very much,
Mark.