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So I've been tearing my hair out trying to get my house totally bathed in the sweet, sweet glow of wifi, but I've had a persistent problem that is making me crazy (and pissing off the girlfriend). I have a refurb E3000 downstairs that works like a charm when you're in the living room with it. Upstairs, my PC is in one corner of the room and gets a so-so signal (2-3 bars or so, the signal jumps around from 13-130mbps though) but basically anywhere else in the room is a giant dead zone. You can connect to the router, but get no signal or data transfer, or its connection is spotty at best. She generally uses her laptop in bed which is right in the dead zone and this is the main problem I'd like to solve. My upstairs has kind of a strange configuration that I think is interrupting the signal and causing my problems, but I can't be sure. Below is a crappy MS paint of how the walls in my apt. are, I think maybe the crazy zig-zag of my stairs might be causing the dead zone? My neighbor's wifi shows up with 5 bars!!! in our bedroom, as their cable comes in through their bedroom wall and is positioned basically next to our bedroom. I tried plugging in a range extender (Cisco RE1000) in the bedroom but its ability to connect to the network is really spotty as well, and when my computer is connecting through it the connection is actually slower and spottier since I think the RE1000 is having a hard time maintaining a connection for the same reason my girlfriend's laptop is. I guess my question is: does this sound like my router is faulty/crappy, or just that I live in a VERY unfortunately designed apartment? Running wires is out of the question, so is powerline my only option at this point? There's no outlets in that crazy zigzag stairwell either.
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May 23, 2012 00:07
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Dogen posted:Is your neighbor's weirdly strong wifi stepping on yours, maybe? Check the channels? Additional stuff in the walls for stairs could also be the culprit, but I would rule other things out first. I've tried changing channels manually and let Tomato scan for the best channel for me with no change in results. My PC is actually up against the wall we share with my neighbor and his router and my PC connects to my network fine.
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May 23, 2012 00:18
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Devian666 posted:Dogen seems to have the right idea. Your neighbour's wifi might be so strong that it affects your reception. If your MS paint is somewhat accurate the dead zone pattern would be explained by jamming. Our network is "mia's house" below.  After looking at inSSIDer, it seems like while we're not on the same channel, theirs (myqwest1819) is crazy powerful and there is a lot of other traffic on my channel (though none are really better). I think I'm going to get her a 5Ghz dongle since the E3000 broadcasts it. Should I be changing to 5Ghz too? himajinga fucked around with this message at 16:36 on May 23, 2012 |
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May 23, 2012 16:30
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So basically I should try switching the laptop to 5Ghz as a barometer as to whether the problem is structural or interference related? If it ends up being structural, would powerline with a broadcaster upstairs in the bedroom be a good solution? If it turns out to be a perfect storm of structural nonsense and a too-crowded 2.4Ghz spectrum, do I add 5Ghz to that combo, or try my original repeater solution but with 5Ghz instead? I would totally run wires but we're renting, and I can't think of a clear path to run them through the walls; our floor plan really is as screwy as that MSPaint makes it out to be. Maybe this is just me grasping at straws, but looking at the power over time graph, my broadcast seems really erratic relative to the other networks, is that normal? Thanks for all your help so far.
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May 23, 2012 18:22
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Dogen posted:1) You can try 5ghz, but like I said, if it's building structure related, it won't help most likely. If it is interference (which looking at your graph leads me to believe it's probably not, assuming that's a graph from the problem spot), it will help. Ha, that graph is actually from my PC where I have a useable-ish connection and a stationary wireless interface. Is the up/down swings weird in that case then? Looking at the wireless connection details on the PC it's not uncommon for the connection speed to jump between all points from 13Mbps to 130Mbps minute to minute. In normal browsing or torrenting it's not a big deal but it does make my HTPC downstairs a crapshoot sometimes as to whether it can stream flawlessly day to day. It usually does fine, but some days it buffers every few minues or so, some days it'll stream content all night without a hiccup. I'll run inSSIDer from the laptop on the bed when I get home and see what it looks like. himajinga fucked around with this message at 19:21 on May 23, 2012 |
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May 23, 2012 19:16
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Yeah, it's a refurb and lived behind a shelf for the first part of its life. Maybe that'll be my first step; I can always ship it back to Amazon if things don't improve. Thanks again, the SH/SC help threads rule  Any preference between the RT-N16 and the WNR3500L? himajinga fucked around with this message at 19:47 on May 23, 2012 |
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May 23, 2012 19:39
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Thanks for all the help in the thread, I bought an RT-N16 and everything is working beautifully, the dead zone is gone and my PC has 5 bars instead of 3
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May 29, 2012 03:58
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I moved recently and suddenly my HTPC is having issues streaming content from my PC with XBMC (a 900MB movie buffers every 15 seconds or something). The HTPC is wired to my RT-N16 and my pc is about 15' away across mostly open space (there's a set of open pocket doors so not a complete wall). Running speedtest.net on the HTPC I've gotten 22Mb up ~ 3Mb down which is consistent with what I pay for, but running it on my PC which has a USB 2.0 300mbs N adapter yeilds only about 3Mbs down and a paltry (and sort of spotty) 0.8Mb up. I used to get almost wired speeds via wireless in my old apartment with the same equipment and with MUCH worse line-of-sight to the router (up a flight of stairs, through a hall around a corner). I have 2 theories that maybe you guys could debunk? First of all, the air in my new building is CROWDED, like probably 25 or 30 ssids popping up on inSSIDer, and probably 5 with strength above -60dB, is that enough to cause the insane performance drop? Second, in my old apartment we just had a small modem that comcast provided that had no wireless routing capabilities. When they installed the internet in my new apartment they brought along a giant beast that is a modem/wireless router all-in-one. I'm not using the modem as a wireless router, but I don't have the wireless radio on the modem turned off. Could that be screwing things up? Should I have them swap out the modem/router for one that is just a modem? himajinga fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Sep 25, 2012 |
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Sep 25, 2012 17:02
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kalicki posted:Turn off the radio on the modem, and have you changed the channel that your network is running on to a less crowded one, at least one that isn't conflicting with the higher signal strength channels? Tried this, worked like a charm! Thanks!
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Sep 26, 2012 19:40
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himajinga posted:Tried this, worked like a charm! Thanks! Ok, didn't work. Worked one night, back to crappy the next. Thoughts?
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Sep 27, 2012 19:23
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Cream_Filling posted:You could try killing all your neighbors and turning off their wireless. So I think what I'm going to try is to use the combo as the broadcaster and wire my rt-n16 halfway across the house and disable DHCP on it, running my wireless from the modem and using the router as an access point or bridge (not sure which this would count as). Sound feasible?
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Sep 27, 2012 22:07
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Cream_Filling posted:You could try that, I suppose, since it won't cost you any money to try it out, but it really sounds like your problem is interference, not range, so it probably won't help much if there's really 30+ SSIDs you see in your place. What's the longest a run of cat5e can be before there's dropoff? The computer is probably 15' away from the router as the crow flies, but to run it in an aesthetically pleasing way would probably take 40' or 50' of cabling, is that ok?
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Sep 28, 2012 18:18
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Ok cool, thanks guys, I'll just get a long run off monoprice and wire up my computer.
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Sep 28, 2012 18:44
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