since i started investing bitcoins in various things, I'm having to re build my wallet a lot. does anyone know why?
In addition to all that has been said. Run only one Bitcoin core or wallet that downloads to your computer on each box. Sometimes two wallets will argue over the port or more precisely the routing might be giving it a hard time. It is not a perfect system, but it will always catch up if you have everything the way that it is supposed to be configured.