I finally nailed down what’s been throwing my router. It’s weird, but then again it’s a computer problem so it’s weird by default.

A few months back I wrote about my router’s weirdness. You can read it here.

Basically, what happened was that some computer on the network got kicked off. It lost its IP assignment, where the IP is what gives the computer its location on the network, it’s address.

When a computer on the network loses its address, it loses access to the network. It’s shut off, with no Internet, no nothing.

The router is the kingpin when it comes to assigning IP addresses. That operation is carried out without any bother from you — unless there is an IP conflict. In that case, you can follow Windows suggestion of restarting the router. I did that. Over and over. Again and again. Sometimes twice a week.

Routers aren’t supposed to be that stupid, even routers from Cisco.

My computer friends said to get a new router, but that wouldn’t have solved the problem.

No new router firmware updates were available, either.

Then I stumbled upon (but not with Stumble Upon) an article about IP address foul-ups. I can’t find the link, so you’ll have to trust me.

Basically, the article said that several Android phones were causing IP problems because they didn’t release or renew their IP addresses properly. None of the devices listed were any gizmos that I owned, but it got me thinking.

I turned off the Wi-Fi radio on all my Android devices. That was two weeks ago, and I haven’t had any IP issues with my router since that time.

There is no sold evidence that my router’s IP issue has been solved, other than it’s just not causing problems any more. But my best guess is that it was my various Android devices causing the issue. I can run more tests to be certain, but even if I am certain I have no way to fix the problem, other than to simply not use Wi-Fi on my Android gizmos.