"It would be helpful to know the maker and model number of the wireless router or "gateway". Some of them are notorious for being unable to maintain and reliable connection. "

Pace 4111n

"Oh-oh, that's bad. Kinda sounds like your unspecified model Gateway
laptop has a problem either in the hardware, wireless drivers, or in
the operating system. I can't tell from here. "

P-6318u

"Not finding any networks is not caused by interference."

Well I changed the wifi board and it did no good. Data from upstairs is probably no good because of the layout. Where she sits the antenna plates (if they're behind the screen like these) would be just about parallel to the signal from the router. I doubt they pick up well like that. She gave up and ran a 100 foot CAT-5 up there a long time ago, and that's with a completely different router. That was a 2wire 2701hg. Though not for her, that one seemed to connect for me just fine. It was replaced due to losing the DSL itself. It is on a completely separate phone line shared only with one FAX machine and filters are properly installed all over the place. We called, they sent the Pace and didn't even want the 2wire back.

"How much later? Did you reboot before it found the neighbors? "

The outages are about 5 - 10 minutes usually. When it starts picking up again that happens all by itself, I don't even have to close and reopen the browser(s).

The only time I reboot the browser is when FF can't connect and Chrome will.. That is due to security issues with the older version (23) I use and prefer. That is likely a security issue, I have tried to tell it to use a higher TLS mode but got tired of trying to figure it out. At one time Chrome had no bookmarks, it was all "Paste and go"ed. At any rate, that is a separate issue and only happens on certain sites. Then the router throws up the wrong error, about filters. Well nothing changed. I almost never reboot. But bottom line is it fixes itself with no intervention at all. That's why I thought it a hardware problem, something thermally intermittent. But 2 with thew same problem ? And drivers don't go thermally intermittent. In fact I have found once they're toast that's it and they need to be reloaded. But it wasn't the wireless board either so I don't know what to do except maybe go back to a CAT cable.

"Do you have another wireless client device other than the Gateway
laptop? "

Not that I can get to at the right time usually. Plus that one does not connect reliably to this wireless. I have a Gateway WGU-210 but IO never got that to work right. I also have a Linksys PCMCIA card but I have no slot for it. There is an older laptop in the basement but I just put the wrong version of Ubuntu on it - too new. It seems to see the Linksys but is so slow everything times out. Maybe I'll put XP back on it, that's what it originally came with. I think it amazing that anything would run XP better than Linux ever, but it seems so.

I guess I'll have to give that old laptop another shot. Load it and see if I can get that wireless working just so I know.

I know it is inconceivable that all these wirelesses in the hood go dead at the same time. But what in software could go wrong and fix itself in a few minutes without even reopening the browser ? All I have to do it hit refresh and there it is.

"Customer arriving with checkbook in hand. Later..."

Money ? And here I thought you were living on pine cones like Yule Gibbons.