Wireless connection drops off briefly and often

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Wireless connection drops off briefly and often - experts at a loss

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sbiddle

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#699436 11-Oct-2012 06:53

tigger:
linw: And, if you have an Android device, download an app called 'WiFi Analyzer'. This is really neat for seeing the wifi networks around you and what channels they are on.

Thanks, just done that. Interestingly no one on 1 which was where I was originally with the problems and no one on 13. I am on 7 and (must be) neighbour on 6 and all is well

The use of an overlapping channel such as 7 when somebody else is using 6 won't deliver optimum performance.

cyril7

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#699447 11-Oct-2012 07:56

Hi also to correct something, Ch12 and 13 is allowed in NZ, however best not used as the scanning profile that most PCs are configured to by default only goes to Ch11 so they fail to scan beyond that. Reason, ch12/13 is not allowed in the US, so what they do we are all like sheep to follow, yeah right!.

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tigger

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#699450 11-Oct-2012 08:04

Thanks for the heads up re channels and other things that would interfere. I am relieved I have not had one drop off of connection since the channel was changed. Not one and yet I was having up to four an hour for the last year at least. On any scale the change of channel has done the trick and hope nothing else jumps on there to take me back to the issues I was having. I am one happy worker.

skewt

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#699455 11-Oct-2012 08:08

hopefully it all keeps working for you, but here is something else to try if that fails

We have a TP-Link at work which was causing dropouts, would work perfectly for a period of time before failing where I couldn't connect to RDP sessions or load webpages correctly

Turned out to be the Wireless-N mode, turned that off, no more issues

To check this, just 'ping -t 8.8.8.8' the packet loss was all over the place including large spikes, now its perfect

sbiddle

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#699459 11-Oct-2012 08:14

skewt: hopefully it all keeps working for you, but here is something else to try if that fails

We have a TP-Link at work which was causing dropouts, would work perfectly for a period of time before failing where I couldn't connect to RDP sessions or load webpages correctly

Turned out to be the Wireless-N mode, turned that off, no more issues

To check this, just 'ping -t 8.8.8.8' the packet loss was all over the place including large spikes, now its perfect

Pinging your router IP address is the best approach to identify WiFi issues. Pinging Google's DNS server in the US starts introducing plenty of other upstream issues.

tigger

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#699463 11-Oct-2012 08:19

skewt: hopefully it all keeps working for you, but here is something else to try if that fails

We have a TP-Link at work which was causing dropouts, would work perfectly for a period of time before failing where I couldn't connect to RDP sessions or load webpages correctly

Turned out to be the Wireless-N mode, turned that off, no more issues

To check this, just 'ping -t 8.8.8.8' the packet loss was all over the place including large spikes, now its perfect

Hi, just tried the ping thing and all looked the same. Have no idea what it all means but guessing same same means all good.

sbiddle

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#699465 11-Oct-2012 08:24

tigger:
skewt: hopefully it all keeps working for you, but here is something else to try if that fails

We have a TP-Link at work which was causing dropouts, would work perfectly for a period of time before failing where I couldn't connect to RDP sessions or load webpages correctly

Turned out to be the Wireless-N mode, turned that off, no more issues

To check this, just 'ping -t 8.8.8.8' the packet loss was all over the place including large spikes, now its perfect

Hi, just tried the ping thing and all looked the same. Have no idea what it all means but guessing same same means all good.

8.8.8.8 is a Google DNS server, which in this part of the world will be located in the USA.

All the ping does is send ICMP packets to the USA, a far better approach is to ping your router which will very quickly identify a local Wi-Fi issue vs a potential upstream issue.

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tigger

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#699466 11-Oct-2012 08:25

sbiddle:
tigger:
linw: And, if you have an Android device, download an app called 'WiFi Analyzer'. This is really neat for seeing the wifi networks around you and what channels they are on.

Thanks, just done that. Interestingly no one on 1 which was where I was originally with the problems and no one on 13. I am on 7 and (must be) neighbour on 6 and all is well

The use of an overlapping channel such as 7 when somebody else is using 6 won't deliver optimum performance.

Is 6 better than 7? Pretty sure I am on 7...

tigger

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#699470 11-Oct-2012 08:32

sbiddle:
tigger:
skewt: hopefully it all keeps working for you, but here is something else to try if that fails

We have a TP-Link at work which was causing dropouts, would work perfectly for a period of time before failing where I couldn't connect to RDP sessions or load webpages correctly

Turned out to be the Wireless-N mode, turned that off, no more issues

To check this, just 'ping -t 8.8.8.8' the packet loss was all over the place including large spikes, now its perfect

Hi, just tried the ping thing and all looked the same. Have no idea what it all means but guessing same same means all good.

8.8.8.8 is a Google DNS server, which in this part of the world will be located in the USA.

All the ping does is send ICMP packets to the USA, a far better approach is to ping your router which will very quickly identify a local Wi-Fi issue vs a potential upstream issue.

Thanks, will come back to this if further probs. Just being an average peep on the computer I don't know how to do much of what was suggested in these responses. However, great place for help and will need a step by step to do any one of these if I have to.

sbiddle

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#699475 11-Oct-2012 08:54

tigger:
sbiddle:
tigger:
linw: And, if you have an Android device, download an app called 'WiFi Analyzer'. This is really neat for seeing the wifi networks around you and what channels they are on.

Thanks, just done that. Interestingly no one on 1 which was where I was originally with the problems and no one on 13. I am on 7 and (must be) neighbour on 6 and all is well

The use of an overlapping channel such as 7 when somebody else is using 6 won't deliver optimum performance.

Is 6 better than 7? Pretty sure I am on 7...

2.4GHz channels overlap each other. This means that in an 11 channel setup that 1,6 and 11 are the only channels that don't overlap. Using overlapping channels means you're simply suffering (or causing) interference to other devices.

The 2.4Ghz band is completely saturated these days and if you live in an urban environment (even worse in the CBD or an apartment block) 2.4GHz WiFi can be close to completely unusable in some locations.

tigger

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#699478 11-Oct-2012 08:59

sbiddle:
tigger:
sbiddle:
tigger:
linw: And, if you have an Android device, download an app called 'WiFi Analyzer'. This is really neat for seeing the wifi networks around you and what channels they are on.

Thanks, just done that. Interestingly no one on 1 which was where I was originally with the problems and no one on 13. I am on 7 and (must be) neighbour on 6 and all is well

The use of an overlapping channel such as 7 when somebody else is using 6 won't deliver optimum performance.

Is 6 better than 7? Pretty sure I am on 7...

2.4GHz channels overlap each other. This means that in an 11 channel setup that 1,6 and 11 are the only channels that don't overlap. Using overlapping channels means you're simply suffering (or causing) interference to other devices.

The 2.4Ghz band is completely saturated these days and if you live in an urban environment (even worse in the CBD or an apartment block) 2.4GHz WiFi can be close to completely unusable in some locations.

Oh right. Thanks for the heads up.

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