Slow Wireless Connection Suddenly

Devour

Reputable
Jul 23, 2014
7
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4,510
Hi,

I'm trying to help my parents fix their wireless but tried everything and haven't been able to do so.

This has only appear to happen just recently (two days ago) and before that, it worked flawlessly, but now the wireless connection is slow across all devices. I haven't extensively tested in other devices, only really on 2 laptops. I have tried on the iPad and it's pretty slow as well. Along with iPhones. But with these two laptops, it goes in and out and finally just stays super slow. Sometimes it will load and webpage but most of the time, just times out completely.

I have wired the laptop directly using Ethernet cable, and that works fine - I get the 25mbps that I'm suppose to, but connecting wirelessly, it just doesn't work at all. I've tried uninstalling the wireless device in Device Manager and let it reinstall itself. Same issue. I've created a brand new SSID in my router - same issue. I've called my ISP and they say its nothing on their side since the wired connection works and then called ASUS, but they were completely useless. We did some ping traces which I got Sent Packets, Received Packets at 4. And 0% Losses (don't know if that helps); so it seems like the connections are going through? Not sure.

Before I dish out money to just have my cable company replace the modem with a modem+router that they have, I would like to see if I can figure this out. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Solution
What your laptop shows as signal bars is almost useless informaiton.

Check your wireless channels, your signal level and noise floor with SSIDer software as advised

The ASUS RT-N56U is a decent router, but every good product line is going to have at least a few duds.

In regards to ISP being able to help you, their help is somethimes more uselless then them not helping you. I can tell them every troubleshooting thing I have done, what modem logs show but because it all goes over their tier 1/tier 2 heads they then tell me to power cycle the modem and then immediatly start to describe to me what the power cord looks like. Last time there was internet outage in my area the woman insisted that there was no outages and after going...
First off dont do the modem+router, you will get a medium end modem and a low/medium router for the barley cheaper then good versions of each individually. Also with combos, if one part fails you hae to replace it all.

Use SSIDer on windows machine to test signal stregnth and also make sure that a nearby neighbor is not on the same channel as your wireless router and causing radio interference.

If there is no interference and signal stregnth is good then you likely just need to replace the router.
 

Devour

Reputable
Jul 23, 2014
7
0
4,510
Hey boosted1g - Thanks for the response.

The thing with the modem+router, my ISP can't help me because it's not their "product" so they literally stayed on the phone with me troubleshooting everything myself and just telling them which didn't help my issues. Hah.

I use an ASUS RT-N56U. And I literally just bought it last year and it has worked. I hope I do not have to replace it after such a short amount of time... it's suppose to be a pretty good router too. The signal strength on the laptops is always at 5 bars.. so that's why I'm pretty stumped. But when I restart the laptop, it doesn't automatically connect - just stays at "here are what you can connect to" icon. The channel is on "Auto" on my router page..

 
What your laptop shows as signal bars is almost useless informaiton.

Check your wireless channels, your signal level and noise floor with SSIDer software as advised

The ASUS RT-N56U is a decent router, but every good product line is going to have at least a few duds.

In regards to ISP being able to help you, their help is somethimes more uselless then them not helping you. I can tell them every troubleshooting thing I have done, what modem logs show but because it all goes over their tier 1/tier 2 heads they then tell me to power cycle the modem and then immediatly start to describe to me what the power cord looks like. Last time there was internet outage in my area the woman insisted that there was no outages and after going through her limited list of troubleshooting steps she then blamed my internet not working because my comuter was custom built by me and not store bought and would not even allow me to schedule a service appointment.
 
Solution

Devour

Reputable
Jul 23, 2014
7
0
4,510
Right! Okay -

Can you give me more info about checking wireless channels, signal stretch and all that? Is it a specific software? How do I check? In the router page, its auto.. do I check it there and go through the specific channels and test them? Or download a software to check this?
 
Download a software called inSSIDer and go to the networks page. the newest version is not free but you can download an older version here:
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html

It will show your wireless SSID as well as all of your neighbors, and will display signal stregnth in db and what wirleess channel it is on.

Ideally you want to be on a different channel then all of your neighrbors that does not overlap. Since there is only 3 non-overlapting channels (1, 6, 11) it is doubtfull that there will be one that none of your neighbors is on. If your neighbors are on all of them then pick the one with the lowest signal stregnth form your neighbors (anything bellow 85 dbm is not going to interfere).

When having the laptop 5 ft from the router you should be getting high 30 or at worst low 40 dbm signal streghnth. If it is lower then there is an issue with the router.


Have you tried upgrading firmware and/or reseting router?
 

Devour

Reputable
Jul 23, 2014
7
0
4,510
Okay - I will try that the next time I troubleshoot it! Thanks.

Yep - I upgraded the firmware for the router yesterday (there was an upgrade). Created a new SSID but same thing happened after 5-10 minutes of it working. Resetted the router also (turned off, left it for 30 seconds, etc, plugged back). Still happens. I'll try the above and I"ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks!
 

Devour

Reputable
Jul 23, 2014
7
0
4,510
Hey, so I downloaded and that program on my hardwired connection. Tested it (since it has a wireless adaptor too) and changed the channel to 11. It says its overlapping with 3-4 others, but the dbm is at 25..

But I still aren't able to connect with my laptops, etc.