Belkin Wireless Router - Help!!

[Flowertop]

First up I'm not at all techy so please be patient with me. I am really in need of some help. I had a Belkin Wireless router installed to work with my two laptops. All going well until one day one went dead. Technical person took back to shop who said that it must have been a power surge. Bought power surge protector and another Belkin router and all working well again until it the router again went dead - no lights or anything. I am wondering if this could be a common problem and if anyone would know why this is happening. No point buying another router until I know what the problem is. Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks

We have a Belkin and it's always causing us problems and we had to replace it once. DH is my computer helpdesk, but is away atm so can't ask him to help you. My feeling though is that Belkin might not be the best brand to go for next time round!

Hope someone more helpful comes along in a minute

yeh we've given up on belkin now. had similar problems to you

our newest one is a netgear one which so far seems much better

It could just be bad luck. However, there is a slim - very slim - possibility that the surge is coming through the phone cable. Get BT to check the socket out. Alternatively, if you've got one of those fancy surge protectors you can route the phone cable through the surge protector as well.

I can't think of any other thing that can affect routers except maybe a very strong magnetic field close by.

Thanks all. Dadatlarge how do I route the phone cable through the surge protector? What could be causing the magnetic field - any ideas.

Some surge protectors (Belkin springs to mind) has phone 'in' and 'out' sockets.

Depends on what you already have, I assume one which doesn't include that option.

For what it's worth, I suspect it is the Belkin - one of my clients had one which seemed to overheat, and eventually died. Recent Netgear routers do seem pretty reliable, but can understand you feeling uncertain about getting anything until you know. Are you using some non-wireless router for now ?

They switched to Homeplugs (not using wireless at all now) but they are about 25 quid per plug and you have a cable from the Homeplug adaptor to the computer (the Homeplug adaptor then sends the data through the house mains wiring to the router, and the router has Homeplug support built in).

Just curious as to whether you are in a town or rural area (my Mum's house is in a village and mains doesn't seem all that stable, compared with people in town).

I have moved in (she died a while ago) and am considering a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) - basically a device that smooths the mains from surges or interruption, and if mains fails, gives 5 or more minutes for user to close down their equipment - depends on UPS power rating as to how many mains devices can be plugged in, and size of the batteries for how long you can 'keep going'... I only mention UPS as a 'last resort' if you are wanting to go the whole hog and depend on the net/PCs and could not cope with either being disrupted {such as having a PC crash due to power problem, and losing e-mail/ hard drive contents}.

However, if it's only the router, and you have lived there a while (eg 2 years) without problems for other things (microwave, freeview box, anything with a chip needed for timing/control that might be sensitive to 'glitches' or surges) then I'd point the finger at the Belkin first for sure !!

Belkin are notoriously substandard!
Return, refund, buy a Buffalo

We have a Belkin router at work, I am another one who thinks they are pretty useless! Use this as an opportunity to buy a new-not-Belkin router!

I have always heard Belkin were unreliable. we have been ok with netgear if you want to buy something new.

A friend has also just gone down the network over the electric system - which seems to work well for him (his wireless before that kept dropping out every few minutes).

SOrry but we also got rid of our Belkin after numerous problems.