My netgear router randomly stops working, why?

My netgear router cg3000d, provide by cox communications, will literally out of the blue stop working. Like I'm playing Xbox live and watching netflix on the laptop during… And I'm disconnected from live, and shortly after the Netflix starts desperately looking for its signal. Check the iPhone. And nothing!
But wait! The router could be a Christmas special with all the same lights as before just glowing bright, telling me everything is as it should be.
The first time this happened a month or so ago, the router totally reset itself, seriously, I lost signal and after the classic "disconnect the power and wait 15 seconds, I find that the router has gone to its factory name and everything.So.fix all that back to what I wanted and I'm good.
A while later it pops out again. Same deal. Enjoying my Xbox live and netflix. And gone.
15 seconds of holding it's carotid artery of power and it's working again.
Weeks go by of using all my lovely gadgets and their lovely Wi-Fi capabilities and it happens again. But this time it's worse. It's reset itself again. But there's more. Unplug for 15 seconds. Good. Get the router cd and start to fix the settings on the computer back to normal. I change the name of the thing and click reset. And suddenly the laptop refuses to connect to the Wi-Fi, for days. Xbox will connect. (AH the Xbox is directly connected to the router, I'm sure that's important) IPhone will connect. But the laptop remains defiant. Wonderful. So after trying some things.update the wireless card.no. I decided to just system restore a few weeks. The time wasn't really relevant. It just seemed to work well enough. So bam! Now it works. For about 7 hours. It's shut off again. Please help

TL;DR
My cox provided router netgear cg3000d randomly disconnects from the net. Be it Wi-Fi or directly connected, it just stops giving out Internet. Or worse yet, resets itself when it does this. Even the xboxlive which is directly connected, is effected by these hiccups.

Check the router for blockages like dust - or anything blocking its vents which could be causing it to overheat. Call cox and complain about the router and hopefully they'll let you turn it in for a new one.

These new range of N routers are how can i put this
em incompatible with everything.

i sent mine back to my isp and reconnected my belkin 54g.

the fact is that any router that is N has a great deal to DEAL with
as far as accommodating older chipsets goes. It can't cope with the
variety of equipment you have. Its mainly down to complexity of packets
because of security features. Both ends must understand the algorithms
and both must implement a compatible system of transfer and they just don't.

equipment that is just 54G and equipment that is N(that also claims to be 54G)
is gonna have difficulty.

there's one sort of answer that may help you.
as these new routers are better than before they do tend to implement
one business class feature. That is DUAL SSID's thats two wireless
signals together. The 2nd is sometimes called GUEST and its intended
for this purpose, that is to provide a separate 54G signal with WEP not
WPA security for old equipment.

research how to swithc on and use the GUEST SSID as at least ONE of your
old devices is probably the main culprit(although i say its the routers fault)

so in short
enable GUEST on a different wireless channel to use WEP security and move
over those old Non N devices back to 54G.

happy days