Modem advice please

[#1]

For some unknown reason my Modem keeps dropping the wifi connection, if I disconnect the power supply for a minute or so and then reconnect it works ok for a few hours or even days and then drops the signal again.
All the green lights are on, no amber or red lights.
It's a plusnet modem for fibre and is connected to a BT router.
When it drops the signal I get the standard message, cannot connect to server, checked with a wired desktop & 2 tablets so certain the problem is with the modem.
Two questions, first is this a sign of the modem packing up and the second question can you recommend a reasonable priced reliable modem I could replace it with ?
Signal strength is showing as very good so that is not the issue.
Thanks

[#2]

I don't have fibre myself but isn't the BT device the modem and the PlusNet part the router?  Whichever, it's the router that does the wireless.

Quote from: gleneagles

is this a sign of the modem packing up

It's often a sign that the wireless functionality is packing up.

[#3]

You are correct, to me they are just a couple of boxes, not uncommon for me to get the names in the wrong order.

[#4]

Have you tried checking the WiFi section on the router itself when the signal dropouts occur to see if there are any obvious issues?
Login details are usually on the back of the router itself and you will need to know the IP address of the router too.

[#5]

Try changing the wireless channel in the router settings.
HowTo for the TG582n router:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/hardware/technicolor-582n-wireless.shtml

[#6]

Thank you.
Some useful information in your posts.
Will try those suggestion out.

[#7]

Hi all,
The advice offered here may help you out too:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/wireless_broadband/wireless_signal.shtml

[#8]

Quote from: ReedRichards

It's often a sign that the wireless functionality is packing up.

Yeah they have a habit of becoming flaky.. yet for some reason ethernet switches live forever. How that works is beyond me.
Personally I'd build a mini itx machine and put a PCI wifi card in and set it to AP. I have a ralink 2500 based PCI card and despite years of use it's never once let me down. For some reason the PCI cards seem to be more reliable than the wifi devices built into routers and printers.

[#9]

routers are often built in a Chinese factory where they glue stuff together, certain types of glue form an acidic mixture if the unit cools down and condensation forms (cold winter nights etc) that acid then drips off the main circuit board onto the lower mounted wifi board where it eats through it, typically that process takes about 18 months to start affecting the device noticeably, this is not a problem confined to cheap routers some seriously high end routers also suffer from it and even two routers on the same assembly line might only have one of them affected depending on which glue stick they lobbed into the machine gluing things inside the router ....... some factories have bigger problems than others as the more acidic glues are cheaper (clearly because of the problem) so whilst not every router has the problem more do than don't, cards otoh rarely have any glue in them and those that do rarely have cheap stuff in them so they don't often suffer the same problems (clearly some low end ones do  and where the condensation running through the glue pools and drips it can also cause premature failure in all sorts of other stuff)
but like everything it seems its a lottery, I had had a naff old BT voyager last nearly 5 years and yet went through 4 hubs in a year (all wifi problems) before I switched to wired only and that router lasted almost 6 years and 2 house moves (billion 7800 not the wifi version) and got replaced as the main router only because I needed wifi........

[#10]

Actually nano you saying that.. i have a car that used to lock and unlock itself randomly and I struggled for ages to get to the bottom of it.
One day i had the switch panel down from the ceiling where the sunroof switch is (along with 3 other switches). While up there i noticed lots of condensation droplets up there and the wires in the connectors that were plugged into the switches were wet. Bingo! Wrapped them all up in leccy insulating tape so that the water would run down the outside of the connector and not had the problem since!
Funny old world..