Odd wireless problem

[toaster]

I just can't figure this one out. It all started after my router fell off the window ledge when my roommate pulled on his network cable. Now, after about a day, my two wireless PC's can't get to the internet. Both can talk to the router, and the PC plugged into the router works fine. Funny thing is that restarting the wireless PC's fixes everything, for about a day. I can reboot one, and it'll work fine, and the other won't work until I reboot that one. About a day later, they'll stop working again. Restarting the router does nothing.

NETGEAR 802.11b router
1 3 year old Dlink b wireless card in desktop
1 1 month old Compaq b/g wireless integrated in laptop.

[G_Dem]

When the wireless pc's lose internet connection:

1) can they both ping the router?

2) can they both ping an internet address like google.com

It seems as though the reason why restarting your wireless pc's fixes the internet is more than likely an ip address issue. Have you tried renewing the ip address without restarting the pc's in the command prompt window?

Does your wired pc ever have a problem?

[toaster]

Only the desktop is down right now, and I can ping the router just fine, but google gets no response. Both computers are running XP Home SP2.

I don't know how to renew my ip in cmd, but I have tried repairing the connection, which doesn't work. The router settings page lists the computers as being attached, and they have the same ip as they always have. AFAIK the wired pc is fine, my roommate hasn't said anything about it.

[G_Dem]

Thats strange because one wireless pc is working and not the other. The other thing is that you can ping the router therefore it is fully connect to the router. Also the router has internet access because your other pc is fine. So the problem must be with the pc.

Have you tried disabling any firewalls?

[toaster]

I turned off ZoneAlarm, and everything works now. Turned it back on, stopped working. Allowed FF to act as server(already allowed to access??), and everything works.

Why would ZA all of a sudden stop working? I didn't change anything to it before this all started, upgraded after, didn't change versions of FF, no new extensions, and affect both my computers, which have slightly different configurations anyway? How would changing my browser's status in the firewall affect cmd pings? I'm happy it works, but I'm still confused on what happened.

[G_Dem]

Im not sure why it would suddenly stop working unless you have accidently done something in zone alarm to affect it. If you would still like to use zone alarm but you cant figure out which settings will work I would re install it and start from fresh. Have you tried reducing the internet security down a notch from the maximum security?

[toaster]

Looks like I wasn't the only one this happened to. At the Zone Alarms (http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=access&message.id=25240) forum I found a couple threads about it. I haven't tried this yet, but it looks like it worked for others. Thanks for all the help.

[G_Dem]

no probs