Firefox WIFI issue - Windows 7

[Mr. S]

Ok, so: I'm usually tech-savvy since I'm working in IT. However, I've never fiddled with wifi, so I'm a bit lost.

Every so often Firefox is seemingly losing connection to my router for a few seconds and this screen appears:

I can simply press F5 for two to three times (it's never working on the first refresh) within 1-2 seconds and the page is loading just fine.

I've had this with my old laptop and fixed it by installing Windows XP besides Ubuntu instead of Windows Vista (which was pre-installed *shudder*). However, I'd like to keep Windows 7 on my new laptop. At least besides Ubuntu. I want to reiterate that everything else (ICQ, MSN, Skype, Steam etc.) aren't suffering from disconnections - not even small lags or anything else.

Laptop model: ASUS X72JR
Router model: D-Link DSL-2740B
Wifi adapter: Atheros AR9285
Wifi mode: 802.11/n using WPA / WPA2 + PSK (can't use something else due to my old iPhone)

I've tried increasing the network.http.keep-alive.timeout value in Firefox but to no avail. I'm pretty sure it's possible to prevent this but I'm a bit lost and would appreciate some help.

 

[nick09]

Sounds like a driver or hardware problem with your wireless card. Though thankfully these cards can easily be replaced by another card.

 

[Casio]

Does it only happen on FF? Try IE or Chrome or another browser to see if you can single out the issue. Does it happen on another device running the same set-up?

 

[Mr. S]

It seems to be connected to Firefox - I'm rarely using Chrome and never had such issues. Yet, like I've said: I had the same with my old laptop (and different router) on Vista but not after installing XP, so I guess it's some sort of problem connected to Firefox interacting with both of them.

 

[Grayfox]

could be a plug in.

Disable all add-ons and check your proxy settigns as you may be infected.

 

[Mr. S]

Thought of this as well - my proxy was set to "Use system settings" but I've changed that to "No proxy" today. However, the proxy used as ".local".

HijackThis didn't show anything bad going on, Spybot S&D is currently running. I admit, having MS Security Essentials on my laptop isn't exactly best but I can't spend money on a second license for Kaspersky at the moment due to my move.

 

[Owen.C93]

MSE is fine.

Try a clean profile, to do this open "run" an type " firefox.exe -p " minus the quotes and create a new profile and use that one. Obviously it's intermittent but try and run a big standard firefox for as long as you can to try and get he problem. Let ms know if that's any better of if it still fails.

In the mean time add an exception for firefox in your firewall.

 

[Mr. S]

I've tried all the usual stuff, don't get me wrong - it's my job to fix computer issues but we're not having any wifi in our office, so well...that's the point. New profiles etc. are pretty much standard procedure.

However, seeing that it's the same issue under both Vista and 7 on different laptops, it might simply be an issue with their respective LAN environment. Question is: what's the issue? :/