Why does my wifi in my building go out every night at exactly the same time?

pauly01

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Oct 3, 2013
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I am in canada now, im from the usa. When i first got here, the internet wifi was very bad at that place. I then went to another apartment and was told internet wifi here was very fast and reliable. The wifi is fast and reliable here... however, sometimes it does disconnect a bit and a bit slow but thats not a big problem usually.


Well i had noticed something very strange. The last week or so i went to bed pretty late and am online. I noticed that at exactly 3:40am... the wifi immediately disconnects and when i click on the internet icon in the bottom right to look for the internet connection... its no longer there. There are 2 wifi internet names/routers in this building that i live in and i was told they have 2 of them in case one of them have a problem, i connect to the other. Lets call them wireless connection a and b. Wireless A is very fast and reliable. B isn't that reliable and many times you can't connect to it though but its still okay. During the day seems to be good but Wireless A is faster than B so i stick with that one.


Anyways, at around 3:40am... wifi goes off. Check the wireless connections... both of them are gone. So i cannot connect to any wireless internet connection at all. I see some other wifi networks but of course thats someone elses and i cannot connect to it b/c u need a passcode for it.


The next day or so, i went to bed pretty late so just going online. Same thing... 3:40am... wifi goes off and when you search for the wifi connections, both are no longer there. So thats when i knew this isn't a coincidence because the first time it happened... i remembered what time it was b/c it was like exactly same time. I then go to bed b/c i cannot even go online anymore.


Yesterday i went to bed late again just to see if this is indeed a disconnect at exactly same time. What you know... same thing 3:40am or so it disconnects and no wifi at all. The thing that is different though is i stayed up still to see when the wifi would come back. I think around 4:05 am or so the wifi connection reappeared and i could connect to it no problem. However, it didn't seem to do that the 1st time as i recalled i stayed up to 4 something and still no wifi.


Does anyone know what is the cause of this? It seems very strange that the wifi would go out and the wifi network names would just go away at exactly same time every night. I was told if the wifi ever have any problems, just walk upstairs to this door where the routers are place... its like one floor under me and in like this place where its in a stairway of a closet. Im not sure how to explain it. To disconnect the power and replug it and wait 1 minute.


I have not done this yet at all b/c i haven't had much problems during the day. The thing is im curious why this happens at exactly 3:40am.


Anyone here ever have this problem? The only thing i know is the name of the internet in my building is Videotron.
 
Solution
There must be some sort of timer on the circuit that is turning it off at 3:40 and back on a short time later.

To fix it you will either need to find out from building maintenance if another circuit is available or if the timer can be disabled. It has nothing to do with the wireless routers themselves.

pauly01

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Oct 3, 2013
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There are 2 wifi connections. Lets call them Connection A and Connection B. Both have the same password if i want to connect to either one. I always choose connection A. But if connection A has problems or doesn''t work, i choose B. Usually one of them will work very good while the other is either good, okay or not that good. So i always see these 2 connections when im on my laptop until that time of course.


Here is the thing. I had asked if Connection A... if that was for the TP Link or for the linksys. Thus there are 2 wifi connections and 2 routers. Connection A which is usually the more reliable one... i was told it was for the TP actually and connection B was for the cisco linkys. That seems to be the opposite of what you expect? The thing was they was not sure which one it was. Is there a way to find out?


Another thing is i had went to that router and connected my laptop with an ethernet cable to the tp link router port. I was connected to Connection B on my wifi. Then i connected the ethernet to it and was still connected to Connection B. Does that mean that tp link has to be connection B and thus connection A is the linksys and thus the person told me the wrong thing? Again they are not sure. Also when i check the wifi connection properties, connection A is WEP. Connection B is WPA2. Does that give you a clue which connection is which router?
 

pauly01

Distinguished
Oct 3, 2013
251
1
18,780
Last night i went there at 3:45am and took a look. The wifi of course went of as usual at 3:40am. When i went there... both the linksys router and the tp link router was powered off. I then unplugged the power cord from each of them and plugged it back in, same thing. The power didn't appear. So this means that at 3:40am, the power goes off in both routers since when i got there 3:45am... there was no power at all.


What does this mean then?



I play online poker for a living. I moved to canada from the usa to continue. So internet is the most important thing for me.



To the person that says why don't i get my own internet... i was told internet in my building is the fastest in this city. Its videotron and very very reliable. I agree its reliable most of the time... but the wifi goes out every night at that time causes me problems even though i dont play that late usually. Also, i was told they need to come to the building to install it and usually require a 1 year contract. Im only allowed 6 months in canada b/c im a usa citizen. I been here for 2 months already.


When i was apartment searching, i made sure i got a place with internet included b/c i dont want any hassle of having to get my own internet and needing someone to come and install it, want something that is there already. My apartment is also furnished as well with cable tv and everything as its better this way than nonfurnished.
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
There must be some sort of timer on the circuit that is turning it off at 3:40 and back on a short time later.

To fix it you will either need to find out from building maintenance if another circuit is available or if the timer can be disabled. It has nothing to do with the wireless routers themselves.
 
Solution