Wifi problems since lockdown

bobblebob

arciere said:

bobblebob said:

Yea will see how it goes. From what ive read, wifi congestion issues usually mean speeds are effected. Mine arent, instead it will go from working fine, to just losing connection and refusing to connect. The SSID is still being transmitted though so there appears to be something there, but it wont connect.

Is that a congestion symptom?

Your router's DHCP could be running out of available IP addresses due to a long lease. By restarting the router, you reset the leases.
I'm not saying this is what's happening, but it's worth checking.

Just seems odd its only just started despite not changing any settings

a

bobblebob said:

Ive used a wifi analyser and there are 3 routers within range on channel 1 (the one im using), 3 on 6 and 2 on 11. I

Is it possibly more people being home, with more devices attached to their network is clogging up the 2.4ghz wifi frequency and causing instability? Ive changed my channel to 6 to see if this helps

Just want to add that the wifi wifi analyser only detects wifi signals, it is not a spectrum analyzer. if there are non wifi items transmitting on that frequency like a slightly off tune microwave, Wireless Microphones, Video senders, possibly some remote control toys, my old red bull wireless mouse, car alarms, garage door openers, zigbee devices all can transmit on this frequency in a non wifi format, blotting out wifi, and without a proper spectrum analyzer you will never know, and the wifi analyzer will not detect them at all

bobblebob

Seems there are a few apps on the Google Play store that are spectrum analyzers, will try one of those

From what ive read though a congested wifi frequency will just cause slowdown. Im not getting that at all, it goes from fast to refusing to connect to wifi

a

The wifi radio on a phone is looking for a wifi compatible and formatted signal. it is not pick up the field strength of a specific frequency.
This may do the job https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RF-Spectrum-Analyser-USB-LTDZ-33MHz-4-4GHz-Signal-Source-Frequency-D5H4-UK-STOCK/254552630069
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Spectrum-Analyzer-USB-35-4400MHz-Sweep-Signal-Source-Generator-Power-Meter-1K/392609619019?

If you want something more traditional, you will probanly have no change from £1000+
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gencomm-GC7106A-JD7106A-RF-Analyzer-Spectrum-Sweep-dtf-Power-Meter-Opt-3-4-5/362632835430?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Anritsu-MS2687B-9kHz-to-30GHz-RF-Spectrum-Analyzer-90-Day-Warranty/232857402028? 

arciere

a said:

The wifi radio on a phone is looking for a wifi compatible and formatted signal. it is not pick up the field strength of a specific frequency.
This may do the job https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RF-Spectrum-Analyser-USB-LTDZ-33MHz-4-4GHz-Signal-Source-Frequency-D5H4-UK-STOCK/254552630069
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Spectrum-Analyzer-USB-35-4400MHz-Sweep-Signal-Source-Generator-Power-Meter-1K/392609619019?

If you want something more traditional, you will probanly have no change from £1000+
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gencomm-GC7106A-JD7106A-RF-Analyzer-Spectrum-Sweep-dtf-Power-Meter-Opt-3-4-5/362632835430?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Anritsu-MS2687B-9kHz-to-30GHz-RF-Spectrum-Analyzer-90-Day-Warranty/232857402028? 

The number of channels in a 2.4 Ghz network are 11 (or 13), even trying all of them one by one shouldn't take you more than a couple of days. Even with a spectrum analyser you still need to choose one of those channels.
Spectrum analysers are used in big projects where there are several radios, locations and buildings involved where it would be physically impossible to try all the different combinations.

wongataa

arciere said:

The number of channels in a 2.4 Ghz network are 11 (or 13),

13 in the UK.  11 in the USA.

a

arciere said:

The number of channels in a 2.4 Ghz network are 11 (or 13), even trying all of them one by one shouldn't take you more than a couple of days. Even with a spectrum analyser you still need to choose one of those channels.

Spectrum analysers are used in big projects where there are several radios, locations and buildings involved where it would be physically impossible to try all the different combinations.

OK, your definition of Spectrum analysers is different than mine. Mine is a radio that ideally monitors (sweeps) the whole spectrum. A wide range of frequencies vs signal strength are displayed and you can choose a window to be display a range like all of the 2 to 5GHz all on one screen, and center in to the point of interest. It is not interested in channels and it does not care about wifi, fm, am, just frequency and amplitude. Everything transmitted on that frequency including noise is measured. 

With this you can determine what is corrupting your signal, signal bandwith etc. If something is corrupting your wifi signal, like my 26 year old microwave oven, no wifi analyzer will ever find it, and it may even kill the whole wifi range around it. My red bull mouse blotted out the whole wifi range, corrupted every channel.

DoaM

wongataa said:

arciere said:

The number of channels in a 2.4 Ghz network are 11 (or 13),

13 in the UK.  11 in the USA.

If you have an FCC-compliant WiFi adaptor then you'll only get 11 channels in the UK too. (I fell foul of this once years ago ... I set my home WiFi to channel 13 and then couldn't connect with my work laptop, until I worked out why).

debitcardmayhem

DoaM said:

wongataa said:

arciere said:

The number of channels in a 2.4 Ghz network are 11 (or 13),

13 in the UK.  11 in the USA.

If you have an FCC-compliant WiFi adaptor then you'll only get 11 channels in the UK too. (I fell foul of this once years ago ... I set my home WiFi to channel 13 and then couldn't connect with my work laptop, until I worked out why).

Are you sure it was the adapter, or were you using XP ? I had similar problems with XP but there was a patch available and I used 13 for years after that , mind you there wasn't the much wifi around me in those days either

debitcardmayhem

@bobblebob can you not use 5Ghz for most of your devices (yeah I know the range is smaller) and for your 2.4 devices set them to use static IP addresses, in fact I would set all your devices to be static, and let DHCP just cater for visitors.