Poor wireless performance

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jbard

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#115028 11-Mar-2013 15:34

I have just moved into a new house and have a new internet connection with Snap.
Also have a new TP-LINK 300mps wireless N router/modem.

I have got really decent line stats but have been having really poor internet performance for the last week.
Finally got round to doing some testing today and I have narrowed it down to something with the wireless.

If i do a speedtest.net test on a wired connection i consistently hit ~13-16Mbps.
If I do the same test using wireless I get ~3-6Mbps.

I have run SSDinsider and have checked that the router is using a different wireless channel than any other networks.

As well as the poor speeds I seem to be getting huge amounts of packet loss over wireless as well. When online gaming it is really noticeable. For some reason running pingtest.net tests it is unable to measure our packet loss.

Is this a faulty router or something else causing these problems?

Cheers

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#778085 11-Mar-2013 17:03

On what device did you do the wireless test from? Did you test it from more than one device?

jbard

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#778086 11-Mar-2013 17:06

noc: On what device did you do the wireless test from? Did you test it from more than one device?

Tested from 2 Dell laptops and one Acer laptop.

noc

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#778088 11-Mar-2013 17:15

Am I correct in saying that those TP-Link modems/router have externally attached antennas? If so, have you check that they aren't loose or damaged?

The only other thing I can think of is; do a factory reset on the switch and setup the router from scratch

jbard

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#778200 11-Mar-2013 21:15

noc: Am I correct in saying that those TP-Link modems/router have externally attached antennas? If so, have you check that they aren't loose or damaged?

The only other thing I can think of is; do a factory reset on the switch and setup the router from scratch

Yes it has 2 external antennas, just checked and they seem to be secured on fine. Will try a factory reset now.

cyril7

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#778201 11-Mar-2013 21:18

Hi, so at the location of your laptop what does SSDinsider report as signal strength, if its under -70dBm then performance can suffer.

Cyril

jbard

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#778203 11-Mar-2013 21:25

cyril7: Hi, so at the location of your laptop what does SSDinsider report as signal strength, if its under -70dBm then performance can suffer.

Cyril

I was sitting on top of the router when i did the tests, just checked now and in the same position I get ~-45dBm

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cyril7

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#778204 11-Mar-2013 21:28

Hmmm, does not sound right.

Cyril

jbard

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#778205 11-Mar-2013 21:30

I was thinking of borrowing a different router from a friend tomorrow and giving that i try.
I figure if that has good performance then the router is faulty or misconfigured.

sbiddle

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#778210 11-Mar-2013 21:36

How crowded is the spectrum and channels? What type of environment do you live in? Suburban or a CBD?

In many urban area 2.4Ghz wireless can be pretty much useless these days.

jbard

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#778216 11-Mar-2013 21:40

sbiddle: How crowded is the spectrum and channels? What type of environment do you live in? Suburban or a CBD?

In many urban area 2.4Ghz wireless can be pretty much useless these days.

Live in the suburbs. Not sure what classes as crowded. Depending on where I am in the house i can see between 4 and 6 other networks. All 2.4Ghz. They all seem to use channel 1 or 11. I have set my router to use 3, and 7 as a secondary.

I was up about 1am last night and ran some wireless tests then and had the same results, I would assume at that time most networks would be off/not being used so shouldn't affect mine as much?

cyril7

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#778217 11-Mar-2013 21:43

Hi cut your wireless down to 20MHz (ie stop auto 20/40) and set on Ch6 based on your comments its most clear.

Cyril

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fellaintga

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#778219 11-Mar-2013 21:52

Doesn't that router have 5GHz? Give that a go there is a lot more channels to choose from. I had some issues the other morning suddenly had a look and suddenly a new vodafone router form the neighbour. Took me a bit to get it sorted. Really only 1, 5 and 13 are proper 2.4 channels. Cyril could have a point as they get extra speed by bonding spectrum and it could be interference somewhere.

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jbard

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#778268 12-Mar-2013 00:12

cyril7: Hi cut your wireless down to 20MHz (ie stop auto 20/40) and set on Ch6 based on your comments its most clear.

Cyril

Hi

Thanks so much for suggesting this really seems to have helped a lot. Now getting about 13-14Mbps on wireless. Seems the changing to 20MHz made the biggest difference.

Cheers

cyril7

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#778274 12-Mar-2013 04:06

Hi, glad it helped. Just a point even though channel 12 and 13 are valid here in NZ they are not in the US, so many clients have US based profiles which means they often only scan as far as 11. Obviously this would cause them to not see an AP on 12,13.

So normally best to avoid and just use 1,6 and 11.

Cyril

sbiddle

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#778288 12-Mar-2013 06:22

As 2.4Ghz channels overlap so the only usable channels are 1,6 and 11.

Ch13 is quite often the best to use in NZ as you'll get far less interferenace issues but you'll run into every day issues with devices that only handle channels 1 to 11 so you need to factor this in before selecting it.

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