Why does my wireless connection keep dropping?

Recently my wireless connection on my HP laptop will drop after only about an hour of connection and when it does the system tray will still say that it is still connected and then it freezes. It doest allow me to repair the connection or to disable it. The only way for me to reconnect is to restart the computer. Ive tried scanning it for spyware and updating the firmware on my router but nothing works. Does anyone know how I can fix this problem?