I've got a Linksys wireless router running at 802.11b specs and an 802.11b Linksys PCMCIA card for my laptop that I purchased at the same time as the router. No matter where I am in proximity to the router, my connection seems to get reset every 5-10 minutes (its not the same amount of time each time). This is really frustrating, especially when I'm in the midst of uploading or downloading a file. Does anyone have any suggestions why this does this or any ideas that might fix it? Thanks! BTW, I live in S. Florida and so the house has steel girders running through it to comply with hurricane codes.

I have about the same Linksys equipment as you. My connection is almost constant. I know it has been up at least 14 hours continuously. My distance is about 30 feet through 2-3 walls. Do you have any other 2.4 GHz appliances around, such as cordless phones?

We do have three cordless phones in the house... not sure what frequency they're at though, I'll have to check. However, I did notice last night that with my desktop plugged into the router ports on the wireless router rather than on my network switch, my desktop got disconnnected periodically as well. Not as often as the laptop, but it did happen. Any other ideas because I don't think the cordless phones would be a problem with the hardwired connection.

If you are running Microsoft XP with Service Pack 1 you might lose connection to your wireless network every 3 to 5 minutes. This can be caused by incorrect wireless network security settings. To solve this problem, you need to disable 802.1x authentication on your wireless network.
1. go to show all connections and double click on your wireless network.
2. on the general tab, click Properties.
3. click the Wireless Networks tab.
4. under Preferred Networks, click your home network, and then click Properties.
5. Click the Authentication tab, and then click to clear the Enable IEEE 802.1x authentication for this network check box, if it is selected.