WiFi troubleshooting tools

[TimmyMallett]

I have a few connection issues at home where I'm running Virgin superhub in modem mode connected to Google mesh router and 2 wifi points.

It's a big house but we've moved stuff about and seem to have had a good coverage for the past few weeks and stability but recently anyone connecting to anything other than the router wifi has had disconnected teams calls. It's predominantly the kids that connect to the other APs so it's difficult to get specifics, so I want to get a spare laptop in that area of the house with some sort of logging and see if I can identify is it's the Teams session or the wifi actually disconnecting. My wife and I also get occasional issue and I want to have a device that is testing non VPN traffic so I know it's a VPN issue for work.

The simplest solution is ping www.google.co.uk - t but is there anything else free that might get me a layer better than that?

[Gren]

If you read on the Google wifi sub-reddit or on the Google support pages you'll see you are far from alone. An awful lot of people have reported frequent disconnections and/or low speed. All seem to be being blamed on various firmware releases with each release seemingly affective a new bunch pf people.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/thread/77597...
https://support.google.com/googlenest/thread/89576...

That first link has been severely cut down by the admins as there were over 300 replies at one point all with similar problems. Locked and no solution offered.

We had the same happen last summer. We'd had the exact same setup as you (Hub in modem mode and a Nest router with one point) for around a year with no problems. Then all of a sudden certain devices would start losing connection several times a day. iPhones seemed particularly prone, but laptops were also affected. Strangely none of the Google home products scattered around the house were affected and my Android phone was fine even when sat next to my wife with her iPhone.

I used a wifi analyzer app on my phone and could see the 2.4ghz signal drop/disappear for a few seconds when in another room from the point so we moved the point. After moving it into the same room as the laptop and all seemed fine but now the TV was suffering as the point was moved further away. Seemed to be, for us, a signal strength issue. But one that only appeared after a year of perfect use.

In the end I bought another Nest router to use as a point and added it to make 2 downstairs and 1 upstairs. Since then we've never had a single disconnect in 6 months after suffering several a day for a couple of months.

I think the problem is specifically with the points not the main router and I think it's one of signal strength/distance - the signal drops out and certain phones/computers were not quick enough at jumping to another band/router. Moving to a 3 point mesh seemed to solve it for us as it flooded the house.

Edited by Gren on Thursday 4th February 13:26

[juice]

Netspot would tell you what the coverage is like in various points round the house.

https://www.netspotapp.com/

[TimmyMallett]

Gren said:

I think the problem is specifically with the points not the main router and I think it's one of signal strength/distance - the signal drops out and certain phones/computers were not quick enough at jumping to another band/router. Moving to a 3 point mesh seemed to solve it for us as it flooded the house.

Edited by Gren on Thursday 4th February 13:26

It certainly seems to have started with one of the 'new' nest wifi points, as opposed to the older Google Wifi brand less rounded version, basically we bought a twinpack, then last year we bought a 3rd of the new Nest brand. The kids were connected to the older wifi point, and I was conncted to the router and neither of us had issues but my wife working in another area of the house served by the Nest unit has had real issues. All this started after we moved house which is probably a coincidence but may coincide with a firmware update. Google support seem to want to blame it on 4 of us using Teams and not having the bandwidth but with a 200meg fibre connection, that's not the issue. Our positioning currently has not changed and for the last 3 weeks it's been absolutely fine with all 3 mesh units testing as 'Good' connection but when we ran it yesterday they dropped to 'Weak' without any of them being moved which suggests some sort of software change. Prior to all this an speedtest would give every device in the house a minimum of 30meg.

We might buy another but right now, I have a laptop just pinging Google and it seems rock solid. Intermittent issues are such a pain in my arse.

[Gren]

Unless you need to Google assistant stuff then definitely get another Nest router and add it as a point. Better internals and not much price difference