So Frustrating!

[Dave Rice]

I find the Sky router drops off dramatically with distance. There is little you can do with it, believe me I’ve tried all sorts of things.

The problem is WiFi access points are usually in totally the wrong place as they are tied to the master socket. Extenders are a PITA and are quite difficult to position correctly. Even if you do they halve the signal by their very nature. The hope is that half of something is better than bugger all, but it rarely is.

Homeplugs I find drop off after 6 to 12 months. They become unreliable and slow up.

The solution we sell, and I’ve mentioned many times before, is a decent business grade AP up as high as possible. We usually put them next to loft hatches as that is often the central point in the house. The problem is you have to wire them back to the router, which we do by going externally.

We use the Ubiquiti UAP range with Cloud Controllers and have only once ever needed more than one (an L shaped farmhouse). I usually just use the 2.4Ghz N one (sometimes the more powerful LR) but they have dual band AC.

[Tippon]

Thanks both 🙂

The Sky router and any wifi extenders are now gone, with just the new Vodafone router plugged in. The computers are all now connected through wifi, but it’s made no difference to the speed compared to homeplugs, or both computers on the same switch with the router on a homeplug to it (just realised that I havent tried it wired with the new router yet). I use Windows Defender on all the systems, and they auto update drivers through Windows Update, but given that it’s wifi and ethernet, I suspect something else.

I’ve set some torrents running on the media system, and they’re running at full speed – roughly 1.5MB/s which I learned from a few years on the dark side as being about right for my roughly 15Mb/s fibre connection. I’ll try some torrents on this machine tomorrow and see what the speed is like, then start eliminating programs and changing hardware if it’s not up to speed.

I’ve got another media system in the other room, so I’ll also try a VNC session to the main media system to hopefully rule out either my main computer or the network :good:

[Dave Rice]

OK, just using a new bit of kit to provision Ubiquiti hardware onsite.

It is a small wireless gateway that can be powered from a 5v battery pack and uses an app on my Android phone.

On connecting to the SSID Android 6 asks me “This network has no Internet access. Stay Connected? No Yes and a tick box for don’t ask again for this network.

[The Duke]

I think it’s a router issue, as I get the same message box when I connect to my hootoo or a hotel wifi. So I’m not sure what option has been turned on on my router.

I may roll the firmware update back I got around the time this began.

[Tippon]

Apologies for not coming back to this over the weekend, but my brother’s girlfriend had a baby on Friday  :yahoo:

I’ll try to have a play around tonight or tomorrow 🙂

 

[Dave Rice]

My usual approach to these sort of problems is how would I make it happen?

Apart from the Android prompt mention earlier, which is a definite may be, I can’t find any such Windows option.

[The Duke]

I got through every page and every option on my router the night this thread took off, and I can’t see anything that (I know of) that would make this happen.

Next time it happens it will spare me on to roll the router back.

If the router want in such a crappy position, I’d unpick the Internet and force it to happen, but its in a position that compromises my back to get to. I send the kids to turn it on off when needed. That’s the reason it’s such a pain as once Internet drops, the router just won’t let any of my devices conect to it,so I can’t remotely reboot it!

The only device I’ve not tried is the ipad, I’ll check k that out next time. If that can’t connect either, it has to be a router setting, in to stupid to spot.

Ive been looking around a few asus asuswrt forums and there is noting there that stands out, but the latest firmware does seem to have a few bugs for a few people.

[Dave Rice]

Here’s a possible clue. Is the channel set to Auto? If so it could be setting itself to a channel out of range of your devices.

You could try setting it to a specific channel and see if that cures it.

There’s a useful Windows app WiFi Analyzer to decide which channel to use, or this Android one.

EDIT – just followed my own advice and moved my 2.4 ghz UAP from it’s self selected Channel 1 to Channel 11. Large files are now transferring from the T420 to the server 25% quicker @ 8 MB/s (64 mbps).

[The Duke]

It is on auto. But I don’t suspect that’s the issue, as the devices can see the router, and you can try to conect, but I get back ip configuration then authentication failed. It won’t give me the old, conect anyway tick box,  I use to see.

I’ll have to dig the hootoo out later, I bet I can conect to that no bother, and get the conect any option.

Also when this happens I can connect to my guest network. Get no Internet (as that’s why the wobble to begin with) , and no access to my network or to the router set up page   (by design), so it has to be somthing in my settings or just a bug with the current firmware.

Since this thread started my Internet had been solid, so it’s not happened since.

[Dave Rice]

That does sound like a bug and not a setting.

[Author]

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