WiFi problems...
Discussion
Recently moved my Netgear router to a new room and have had some connection issues since. On investigation I discovered that "Auto" channel select means "Ch.6" 
which is what 4 or 5 other ones are on nearby!
Changed to Ch.1 and moved the router off the top of my PC (don't like EM fields or large bits of metal nearby apparently).
It was fine for a few days but I am having issues again. When the laptop is 20 feet away or so the network appears and disappears every few seconds, even when it has a strong signal (using WiFi Analyzer for Android to check). I think there is somebody else with a very weak Ch.1 signal.
With laptop next to the router it is better.
What can I do about this? The router has an internal aerial. I can't select a higher channel as for some reason in the firmware I can only select 1-7 and auto. Why does it appear amd disappear? Is it because of the very weak signal from another Ch.1 router? I can't see that when I'm sat next to my router, only in the living room which is where I'm having connection problems.
which is what 4 or 5 other ones are on nearby!Changed to Ch.1 and moved the router off the top of my PC (don't like EM fields or large bits of metal nearby apparently).
It was fine for a few days but I am having issues again. When the laptop is 20 feet away or so the network appears and disappears every few seconds, even when it has a strong signal (using WiFi Analyzer for Android to check). I think there is somebody else with a very weak Ch.1 signal.
With laptop next to the router it is better.
What can I do about this? The router has an internal aerial. I can't select a higher channel as for some reason in the firmware I can only select 1-7 and auto. Why does it appear amd disappear? Is it because of the very weak signal from another Ch.1 router? I can't see that when I'm sat next to my router, only in the living room which is where I'm having connection problems.
Just tried channel 3 and still having connection problems and the network disappearing. Can't see it at all at the moment and the laptop and phone are sitting less than 12 inches from the router.
Are netgear dg834n routers particularly dodgy.
This is the second router I have paid a lot of money for after having been told they were the dog's to find out that they were crap. Had no end of issues with a Draytek Vigor 2600 We a few years back.
Is it my routers or is it just that wifi is a bit s
t?
Are netgear dg834n routers particularly dodgy.
This is the second router I have paid a lot of money for after having been told they were the dog's to find out that they were crap. Had no end of issues with a Draytek Vigor 2600 We a few years back.
Is it my routers or is it just that wifi is a bit s
t?If you've got some neighbour with a badly implemented 802.11n base station, then it'll fk up your Wifi network. Certain configurations (wide channels) effectively leave you with only 3 possible 'channels' in the available bandwidth and if multiple neighbours are using the middle one, you're fked because either side gets some sideband interference (may be using the wrong terminology here as I'm not an RF engineer).
Basically 802.11n over 2.4 GHz shags the entire band and it's a battle of whoever has the strongest transmitter. Buy a bunch of repeaters and high-gain antennae that point in the right directions to cover the main parts of your house. If you're in a single-level flat, then a high-gain omnidirectional (torus-shaped signal) antenna may work - at least to make your signal stronger than your neighbour's.
Alternatively, use 802.11a or 802.11n on 5 GHz, if your neighbours are using any legacy equipment (802.11b/g) then they'll be stuck on 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz band will be free for your use... it's shorter wavelength and thus doesn't pass through walls / round corners as easily though.
If you can live with 5 GHz (i.e. have all 802.11a, or all 802.11n that can be configured for 5 GHz) then get an old, knackered and leaky microwave oven, and leave it on all the time. That'll screw up your neighbours' Wifi good and proper - after a while they'll give up and install a proper network with cables and stuff.
If you can't be arsed with playing at being a network engineer in your free time, the powerline network products are a good idea - running over your mains power cabling, convenient, more secure than Wifi and faster. No good for connecting an iPhone etc. though - however a femtocell connected directly to your Ethernet router will give full-speed HSDPA on all 3G smartphones...
k up your Wifi network. Certain configurations (wide channels) effectively leave you with only 3 possible 'channels' in the available bandwidth and if multiple neighbours are using the middle one, you're fked because either side gets some sideband interference (may be using the wrong terminology here as I'm not an RF engineer).Basically 802.11n over 2.4 GHz shags the entire band and it's a battle of whoever has the strongest transmitter. Buy a bunch of repeaters and high-gain antennae that point in the right directions to cover the main parts of your house. If you're in a single-level flat, then a high-gain omnidirectional (torus-shaped signal) antenna may work - at least to make your signal stronger than your neighbour's.
Alternatively, use 802.11a or 802.11n on 5 GHz, if your neighbours are using any legacy equipment (802.11b/g) then they'll be stuck on 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz band will be free for your use... it's shorter wavelength and thus doesn't pass through walls / round corners as easily though.
If you can live with 5 GHz (i.e. have all 802.11a, or all 802.11n that can be configured for 5 GHz) then get an old, knackered and leaky microwave oven, and leave it on all the time. That'll screw up your neighbours' Wifi good and proper - after a while they'll give up and install a proper network with cables and stuff.
If you can't be arsed with playing at being a network engineer in your free time, the powerline network products are a good idea - running over your mains power cabling, convenient, more secure than Wifi and faster. No good for connecting an iPhone etc. though - however a femtocell connected directly to your Ethernet router will give full-speed HSDPA on all 3G smartphones...
TurricanII - it's a Thinkpad T42 with built in 11a/b/g WiFi.
Cyberface, thanks for the long response - I can't claim to understand it all though!
I have tried several different channels without any difference, and the different modes (g&b/up to 130Mbps/up to 270Mbps) - left it on the latter as that is standard.
It has worked fine with the occasional glitch when upstairs sitting on top of metal PC case. I moved it downstairs and had some issues until I moved it so it was away from the PC and just on the desk. It has been fine for the best part of a week until yesterday afternoon when my wife couldn't get a connection on her laptop. Was fine when I got home in the evening.
Was not working again this evening, but did manage to get a slow connection. Have now got a laptop and my wifi phone on my desk inches from the router, and although my wifi analyzer software on the phone can see a very strong signal from the router, neither my latop or phone will connect.
It is driving me absolutely nuts. I suppose it's possible that next door have their router on the other side of the wall, but the next strongest signal (again, it's intermittent) is on Ch.6 to my Ch.1
I have reset and powercycled the router, reconnected to the internet, reset and confirmed the settings, and no joy.
Having said that, it has just allowed me to reconnect - but I haven't changed anything!!
I am loath to buy a new router and find out that it is interference from another wifi network, but I have read of a lot of problems with this model of router... And I can't see what else I can do to fix the problems.
ETA: transmit speed is awful though - currently varying between 48Mbps and 256Kbps
For some reason my wired connection is very slow as well although I suspect this is unrelated as I should still be able to connect to the router...
What is the best ADSL 4-port router around for sensible money that is reliable? I have good stuff about the Billion stuff...
Cyberface, thanks for the long response - I can't claim to understand it all though!
I have tried several different channels without any difference, and the different modes (g&b/up to 130Mbps/up to 270Mbps) - left it on the latter as that is standard.
It has worked fine with the occasional glitch when upstairs sitting on top of metal PC case. I moved it downstairs and had some issues until I moved it so it was away from the PC and just on the desk. It has been fine for the best part of a week until yesterday afternoon when my wife couldn't get a connection on her laptop. Was fine when I got home in the evening.
Was not working again this evening, but did manage to get a slow connection. Have now got a laptop and my wifi phone on my desk inches from the router, and although my wifi analyzer software on the phone can see a very strong signal from the router, neither my latop or phone will connect.
It is driving me absolutely nuts. I suppose it's possible that next door have their router on the other side of the wall, but the next strongest signal (again, it's intermittent) is on Ch.6 to my Ch.1
I have reset and powercycled the router, reconnected to the internet, reset and confirmed the settings, and no joy.
Having said that, it has just allowed me to reconnect - but I haven't changed anything!!
I am loath to buy a new router and find out that it is interference from another wifi network, but I have read of a lot of problems with this model of router... And I can't see what else I can do to fix the problems.
ETA: transmit speed is awful though - currently varying between 48Mbps and 256Kbps
For some reason my wired connection is very slow as well although I suspect this is unrelated as I should still be able to connect to the router...
What is the best ADSL 4-port router around for sensible money that is reliable? I have good stuff about the Billion stuff...
Edited by NiceCupOfTea on Wednesday 20th January 21:58
Check the properties of your wireless card out to find the model. Some of these laptops shipped with the Intel 2200BG or 2915abg wireless network card - both of which had a bug in the driver which made wireless access very iffy. Has any other device tried using your wireless - does that work properly? If so, find your network card model and get the latest driver installed from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/documen...
There are two frequencies that Wifi can run on - 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
2.4 GHz is what microwave ovens use to boil water (resonant frequency of the hydrogen-oxygen bond in the water molecule IIRC) and it's noisy as hell. It's what 802.11b and 802.11g use as standard, and 802.11n eats up all the bands around that frequency.
5 GHz was originally used by 802.11a, but is now also part of the 802.11n spec.
If you've got a laptop with a card that is capable of 802.11a, then I'd be very tempted to get a router that also can support 802.11a and set up your network on 5 GHz, since it's most likely that your neighbours are using 'standard' Wifi and hogging the 2.4 GHz band. Your 5 GHz network will be entirely unaffected by any antics in the 2.4 GHz band.
Incidentally, if one of your near neighbours has a knackered, leaky, old microwave oven - every time they switch it on, it will knacker everyone's 2.4 GHz Wifi connections.
Also, since 2.4 GHz is the 'ISM' free-for-all unlicensed band, any device can transmit on it (Bluetooth does as well) which makes it a pretty congested bit of the radio spectrum. If your hardware supports it, I'd use 5 GHz every time...
But as TurricanII says, you could have shoddy drivers. Atheros also make fking abysmal Wifi chipsets that do all the processing in software, making them Windows only 
2.4 GHz is what microwave ovens use to boil water (resonant frequency of the hydrogen-oxygen bond in the water molecule IIRC) and it's noisy as hell. It's what 802.11b and 802.11g use as standard, and 802.11n eats up all the bands around that frequency.
5 GHz was originally used by 802.11a, but is now also part of the 802.11n spec.
If you've got a laptop with a card that is capable of 802.11a, then I'd be very tempted to get a router that also can support 802.11a and set up your network on 5 GHz, since it's most likely that your neighbours are using 'standard' Wifi and hogging the 2.4 GHz band. Your 5 GHz network will be entirely unaffected by any antics in the 2.4 GHz band.
Incidentally, if one of your near neighbours has a knackered, leaky, old microwave oven - every time they switch it on, it will knacker everyone's 2.4 GHz Wifi connections.
Also, since 2.4 GHz is the 'ISM' free-for-all unlicensed band, any device can transmit on it (Bluetooth does as well) which makes it a pretty congested bit of the radio spectrum. If your hardware supports it, I'd use 5 GHz every time...
But as TurricanII says, you could have shoddy drivers. Atheros also make f
king abysmal Wifi chipsets that do all the processing in software, making them Windows only cyberface said:
But as TurricanII says, you could have shoddy drivers. Atheros also make fking abysmal Wifi chipsets that do all the processing in software, making them Windows only
Reminds me of the WinModem, nothing but some tracks to a connector and a windows only application that they had the nerve to call a driver.king abysmal Wifi chipsets that do all the processing in software, making them Windows only The great 'hide the SSID' myth doesn't help. That's like driving in the dark without lights wearing IR goggles. You might be happy stealthed but sooner or later someones going to crash into you.
As an aside from cyber's excellent post - I would imagine a slightly *cough* more powerful output power and a direction aerial may well aid you in this situation. I recall using the Linksys WRT54G with a 3rd party firmware to boost the output power a few years back - seemed to do the trick. The increased power is only available on base station transmit....but it was a start.
cyber - I quite fancy a cup of tea, can you make me some hot water using your magnatron-like WiFi signals
cyber - I quite fancy a cup of tea, can you make me some hot water using your magnatron-like WiFi signals
Router has been off overnight. Just powered it up - managed to connect to wifi and then got kicked straight off again. WiFi scanner showed alternate 100% reception and nothing. Unable to connect. Then wired BB became unreachable, followed by router admin page! Power cycled router (no mean feat as these Netgear routers just give a red light if you don't leave them powered down for at least 10 minutes) and wired BB is back but the graph of signal strength on WiFi analyzer looks like this:
Perhaps not quite such a regular square wave but you get the idea. Other nearby WiFi networks appear at about 10% strength but they are all on totally different overlapping channels - and I have tried several different channels.
ETA: that'll teach me not to preview my posts...
Just been for a wander with GPS/Wifi app on my phone to try to track down the location of the other networks. Not much use, just too many of the damn things.
Strangely I have found that since changing to Ch.7 half an hour ago it has stayed up. Very odd - loads of stuff on 6 but not much else. 1, 3, 4, & 6 have been utterly useless but 7 seems OK.
We'll see, but I'm going to look for an "a" router if that runs on a different frequency and might avoid all the hassle.
Any recommendations?
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Perhaps not quite such a regular square wave but you get the idea. Other nearby WiFi networks appear at about 10% strength but they are all on totally different overlapping channels - and I have tried several different channels.
ETA: that'll teach me not to preview my posts...
Just been for a wander with GPS/Wifi app on my phone to try to track down the location of the other networks. Not much use, just too many of the damn things.
Strangely I have found that since changing to Ch.7 half an hour ago it has stayed up. Very odd - loads of stuff on 6 but not much else. 1, 3, 4, & 6 have been utterly useless but 7 seems OK.
We'll see, but I'm going to look for an "a" router if that runs on a different frequency and might avoid all the hassle.
Any recommendations?
Edited by NiceCupOfTea on Thursday 21st January 19:32
'kay, the saga continues (that is 2 evenings and a morning that I should have spent on my tax return...).
Moved router away from other half of semi and placed high up. After a bit of experimentation it seemed to provide a solid signal. Started to move it back in and although the signal was strong would start to drop out in that square wave "all or nothing" way. Placed it on a very high shelf on the same wall it was on originally with the same problems.
Dug out my old Draytek Vigor 2600We - wireless is straight up an connecting without a problem (don't want to use this though as no WPA and the WEP was so unbelievably flaky I jsut left it off altogether. No glitches whatsoever anywhere in the room.
So it can't be other networks interfering can it? Draytek is on Ch.6 which is supposed to be the congested one...
All I can think is the (internal) aerial in the Netgear has a dodgy connection...
Any other thoughts? My last resort is flash of the latest firmware, and then I think I need to look at 802.11a routers (cyberface, is this correct?)
Moved router away from other half of semi and placed high up. After a bit of experimentation it seemed to provide a solid signal. Started to move it back in and although the signal was strong would start to drop out in that square wave "all or nothing" way. Placed it on a very high shelf on the same wall it was on originally with the same problems.
Dug out my old Draytek Vigor 2600We - wireless is straight up an connecting without a problem (don't want to use this though as no WPA and the WEP was so unbelievably flaky I jsut left it off altogether. No glitches whatsoever anywhere in the room.
So it can't be other networks interfering can it? Draytek is on Ch.6 which is supposed to be the congested one...
All I can think is the (internal) aerial in the Netgear has a dodgy connection...
Any other thoughts? My last resort is flash of the latest firmware, and then I think I need to look at 802.11a routers (cyberface, is this correct?)
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