Wireless trouble shooting

[Doctordestiny]

A friend recently hooked up a new wireless router. There are two laptops that use the wireless, and he sometimes streams movies on his 360.

About a month ago, the internet kept cutting out. It would recognize other wireless nearby, but not his. He could log onto a public wireless signal, but not his private signal. It only happened on one of the laptops. Now the other laptop is experiencing the same problem, and whenever he streams movies on his 360, it works briefly before cutting out.

He's now unplugging the router and plugging it back in. Doing this it sees their private signal again and the internet works. Anybody know what the problem is and how to fix it?

[Thor]

Need to know what your router is and your wireless card(s).

[Mad Mel]

Originally Posted by Doctordestiny

A friend recently hooked up a new wireless router. There are two laptops that use the wireless, and he sometimes streams movies on his 360.

About a month ago, the internet kept cutting out. It would recognize other wireless nearby, but not his. He could log onto a public wireless signal, but not his private signal. It only happened on one of the laptops. Now the other laptop is experiencing the same problem, and whenever he streams movies on his 360, it works briefly before cutting out.

He's now unplugging the router and plugging it back in. Doing this it sees their private signal again and the internet works. Anybody know what the problem is and how to fix it?

Most wireless routers have a number of channels that you can choose from. It might be that something is interfering on the frequency that he's using. If he logs into the firmware on the router, he might be able to change it. I have had this problem in the past with a D-Link router I used to have.

[Thor]

Also with Dlink and other routers, if you are using p2p programs you need to limit to 200 or less global connections in utorrent, vuze, etc..

[Mad Mel]

Oh yeah, another thing that sometimes works.... go into the firmware and just reset back to the default settings. Then set up your personal settings again. It's the simplest solution, sometimes.

[Russic]

Thanks for starting this thread! Just last week our wireless
got weaker out of the blue. I didn't add anything, I just noticed my wife's iPod wouldn't connect upstairs where it used to. I'll try some of these solutions.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Do you guys have several active cell phones in your home? I find cells are the biggest problem causers with wireless laptops. My bro was having the same problem with his wireless connection cutting out. Turned out one night when he was on the net, his wife walked by while turning on her cell phone, POOF!! he loses his connection.

There are a lot of routers out these days that can operate at either 2.4 ghz or 5.something ghz band (assuming the related wireless card can do the same) which would really help cut down on lost connections due to interference. So much in your home runs on the 2.4 ghz band, it's really quite surprising more things don't suffer as a result.

[mykalberta]

Cells and wirelss hand sets.

My parents had a problem and their phones were setup 2.4 band 6 where the router was setup 2.4 band 8. Moving the band to 12 on the router helped immensely - so did replacing the router with a Linksys.

Crappy DLink.

[ken0042]

My old router would lose connection whenever my neighbour would use his cordless phone. Took me forever to find that problem- finally one sunny day I was on my deck using the laptop and he was on his deck waiting for a call.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Another thought, many cordless phones are now offered in a different frequency, that would help too. Microwaves also throw off a lot of interference when they are running.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Another thought, many cordless phones are now offered in a different frequency, that would help too. Microwaves also throw off a lot of interference when they are running.

Truthfully, I have never found Microwave ovens to be a true source of interference. I have a desktop machine underneath my microwave in the kitchen, and out of idle curiosity one day I ran some performance tests while the microwave was running full tilt for 6 minutes (sterilizing baby bottles), and I found no effect whatsoever. I have a 2.4ghz cordless phone base on the same countertop surface, and it doesn't cause issues either (although I could see a cordless phone that doesn't use spread spectrum or frequency hopping causing interference in some rare cases)

My suggestion would be that if you find a microwave oven that is causing 802.11 interference, you should probably pitch the microwave rather than buy a new router - it's leaking high energy radio waves, and I doubt that's healthy.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Truthfully, I have never found Microwave ovens to be a true source of interference. I have a desktop machine underneath my microwave in the kitchen, and out of idle curiosity one day I ran some performance tests while the microwave was running full tilt for 6 minutes (sterilizing baby bottles), and I found no effect whatsoever. I have a 2.4ghz cordless phone base on the same countertop surface, and it doesn't cause issues either (although I could see a cordless phone that doesn't use spread spectrum or frequency hopping causing interference in some rare cases)

My suggestion would be that if you find a microwave oven that is causing 802.11 interference, you should probably pitch the microwave rather than buy a new router - it's leaking high energy radio waves, and I doubt that's healthy.

In my office the main board room is across from the kitchen area, and until we upgraded the wireless anyone using the microwave would disconnect the wireless users in the boardroom.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

In my office the main board room is across from the kitchen area, and until we upgraded the wireless anyone using the microwave would disconnect the wireless users in the boardroom.

This.

I guess I should have mentioned that this was with an older microwave running in the house. Even our newer one wreaks havoc on our cordless phones but the oven and base are farily close to each other. Not an ideal setup but we are limited in options for places to put it.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Cells and wirelss hand sets.

My parents had a problem and their phones were setup 2.4 band 6 where the router was setup 2.4 band 8. Moving the band to 12 on the router helped immensely - so did replacing the router with a Linksys.

Crappy DLink.

The only non-overlapping 802.11g channels are 1,6, and 11. Ideally you want to be on the least crowded of one of these three channels.

For example, in my neck of the woods, nobody is on channel 1, so I took it. Channel 6 tends to be the most crowded.

[ricosuave]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

The only non-overlapping 802.11g channels are 1,6, and 11. Ideally you want to be on the least crowded of one of these three channels.

For example, in my neck of the woods, nobody is on channel 1, so I took it. Channel 6 tends to be the most crowded.

How do you tell if one of these channels is 'crowded' or not? Is there a program?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by ricosuave

How do you tell if one of these channels is 'crowded' or not? Is there a program?

This article might help

[GoinAllTheWay]

Saw an ad yesterday for cordless phones that are "wireless network friendly". I guess companies are realizing there is a problem and are offering products to help reduce the clutter.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Rathji

This article might help

Yeah, thats a decent link. You'll probably find that you have a big clump of wireless network visible at your location, all on channel 6, and then some outliers on the other channels. Keep in mind that you really want to be on 1, 6, or 11 if at all possible.

Another cause of connectivity issues that I have seen is routers that support auto-selection of channels - this is great when there aren't a lot of WAPs around, but I've seen issues where the router is changing channels too frequently, because it's seeing network activity all over the spectrum.

I also think weird things happen where multiple routers in auto-channel mode start switching channels - they trigger other routers to switch too, which perpetuates the switching back and forth. You have a hard time getting all the networks to settle down and stay on one channel for any length of time