Wireless router issues - can't find it sometimes.

PaulJM

Hi all,

I'm reasonably good with techie stuff, but the wireless router world beats me sometimes!

I had an oldish Belkin - a pretty good one, but it was slowly loosing range, not working well with the new Android stuff, etc, so I changed it out for a Netgear (again, not a dead cheap one)
It was a pain to set up, kept loosing connection, so they stepped it down to an older release (their tech support are in the Philippines - nothing wrong with that, but I think we both had issues understanding each other - I'm from Manchester )
I've never had anyone want to do this, so I presume they had an issue with a new release?
Anyway, it seemed to work ok, but I'm having problems again.

Sometimes my devices, pretty arbitrarily, will not find it. It will never loose connection, but it just seems invisible to certain things sometimes - so my wifes phone might be seeing it fine, but to mine it's not there, or the Laptop might be seeing it, but the printer will not find a thing.
Other times, nothing can find it, until I reset both it, and the Virgin router.

I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the Virgin router, as this was the way my Belkin behaved, sometimes.
It's so hard to prove though - Virgin customer service can be pretty awful, and they are very quick to point the finger at anything else (Don't get me started, but every time there is an issue with anything they want me to leave it for a day because it's a problem at the local switch, when I know it isn't, TV issues, phone issues, anything - luckily it hardly ever goes wrong!)
Netgear and Belkin eventually blame the devices, I've virtually a whole new set of connecting hardware since it started happening.
It's so frustrating! Anyone any ideas?

P.S - Mostly it's ok, this is probably 10% of the time you try to connect.

GunJack

so, to clarify...you have a virgin cable modem, linked to either a belkin or netgear cable router ???

PaulJM

Yes sorry, that got lost in my babbling.

Net Gear Wireless router.
Virgin Modem.

Lots of wireless devices.

GunJack

so, download inssider from here to a wifi-enabled laptop

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

install and run it, and see if your wifi is getting interfered with by a neighboring router, and change your wifi channel accordingly. You may wish to check this at different times of day/evening, as what you see will depend on whether the other routers in the vicinity are on or off (eg if your neighbors work, their router may be off during the day, but at night it may be interfering with yours).

GunJack

t'other thing is to check your router doesn't have an idle timeout set on it....

vinylmusic

After following Gunjack's advice and if you are finding you have a signal conflict change the channel that your router is using.
There is an ip address on the bottom of netgear that should read something like 192.168.2.1 Type that into your browser with the router hardwired to your computer
username and password should be admin / password (also on the bottom of router)
You'll get what looks like a website with configuration options and help column along side. Also find help on Netgear website
You should find different channel options
Try different channels until you find one that works.

flexrider

another thing you not mentioned is your wireless adapters to the computer via router since you said are old are they b/g/n networked

for exmple you could be using wireless G card or internet LAN card in your machine which does around 54MBPS a sec and the router maybe a B or N network router,

not a big idel but worth a check also

PaulJM

Thanks guys,

really appreciate it. I'll go through all the points later tonight, and let you know if it helps.

PaulJM

GunJack wrote: »

so, download inssider from here to a wifi-enabled laptop

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

install and run it, and see if your wifi is getting interfered with by a neighboring router, and change your wifi channel accordingly. You may wish to check this at different times of day/evening, as what you see will depend on whether the other routers in the vicinity are on or off (eg if your neighbors work, their router may be off during the day, but at night it may be interfering with yours).

Had a bit of a skive to download this (It used to be called my lunch break)
My router says channel 11 +7 - and others say channel 11. I don't know where they are though.
So would it mean that if there are 2 more using 11, it would definately interfere with mine? Why 11 +7?

PaulJM

Bump just to see if the techie lads and ladies can answer my post above...

GunJack

yours on 11+ 7 is channel bonding, in order to attain N speeds. If others are also on ch 11, yes they will interfere with yours.might be an idea to move yours to 1+5 to avoid your neighbours

..and you wouldn't want to see me in a dress :rotfl: