Aspire One Loses Internet Connectivity after a Download

I have a very strange issue. I recently purchased a DIR 655 router. I currently have it set on mixed mode and I have turned off all firewalls and protected setup.
My desktop Mac connects to the router wirelessly no problem and runs fine, as does my Touch. I also have an Acer Aspire One (stock) laptop running Windows XP
which exhibits very strange behaviour. At first, I thought the issue was with my DIR 655 Router, but the problem only exists on the Acer, not the Mac, Touch, etc. Here is the issue. The Acer will connect to the Router and allow me to surf through Firefox or Explorer without a problem. As soon I start any kind of download (either through a 3rd party program like BitLord, or downloading a file, program update, etc through the browser) I initially get very good speeds, and then within 10 or 15 seconds of the download starting, I can watch the speeds get throttled back to next to nothing, and then fully stop at which point, while my laptop still tells me that I am "connected" and my signal strength is "Excellent", I am no longer able to access the internet. All indications on the Acer are that I am still connected, but I can't surf and receive the error message in the browser that I cannot access the internet. Sometimes, if I walk away for half an hour and then come back, I can resume surfing, but not always. However, as soon as I hibernate the laptop or disconnect from the router in any way and then reconnect, I am once again able to surf, but as soon as any download starts, the same issue occurs again and I lose connectivity (even though the icon in the window tray says I am still connected).
I have carefully gone through all of my router settings, but I don't know what might be causing the problem. Anyone have any suggestions or seen this before? It is driving me crazy.
TIA (thanx in advance)
By the way, for about a year, I was using my Acer with an older Linksys router and I never had this problem.

 

A lot of people have had this problem. Its the Atheros wireless board (crap) that is dropping the connection. The last theory I heard was that it gets "overwhelmed" by errors in the signal when trying to maintain a large bandwidth window. You might be able to fix this by updating the drivers, but some people have gone as far as replacing the Atheros board with a broadcomm one. You can get the board cheap on ebay, but depending on what model Acer you have it could be a pain to switch it out.

 

Interesting. And is the reason that I didn't have this problem with AOne when using my older Linksys router is because that was an old G router and this is a newer N? (The AOne is still G though, but maybe the speeds from the router have been slower).
I will try and find a link and see if I can update drivers.
Thanx

 

Seems like I need a little more help. I checked the Acer web site and downloaded the most current driver but I think it was the same driver as shipped with the netbook. Doesn't seem to have been updated lately.

 

Have you thought about updating the firmware for the router? You wouldn't be the first person that's had to.