Packet loss between devices and router on wireless since last Friday. Disturbance?

Cyo

Reputable
Nov 10, 2014
2
0
4,510
Since last Friday, I have huge packet loss and high ping between all wireless devices and my router. I have tested on multiple devices and the problem occurs on all of them. I also put my phone with tethering near where the router is, with the router turned off, and I get the same problem.

The exact problem is lots and lots of dead wifi spots in the house. It's possible to see the SSID of the router everywhere in the house, but connecting to it is a different matter entirely. If you connect while standing next to the router, it will work, but once you walk to any of the dead zones, there is enormous packet loss (80-100%) and high ping if a packet doesn't get lost (500-5000ms).

We had this problem before, but only in the attic (my room). This is 2 floors up from the router, but it worked fine first. I had 1-2 ms ping in this room. Then one day, the problems appeared. We solved it by putting an extender in one of the areas in the attic that did have connection and put a cable to my room. It was fine for me then. Usually. Sometimes I would still get these latency spikes and pages not loading, but they usually weren't that bad, and only upstairs.

Now last Friday, the problem seems to have spread through the whole house. There are dead spots virtually everywhere. I found some places where I do have internet (eg. 10 cm above the table, on the floor in the hallway in front of the router, incredibly awkward) and in these spots, the internet is actually good (1ms). Rarely, I've seen it fixed for a few hours. Then the internet in the house would be normal again.

I checked if no one was on our router's channel (13), and we're the only one. I also tried moving the router to another channel (4), but that only made matters worse.

I am positive the devices are fine: they have no problem connecting on other networks. And I tested on 5 devices: all have the same problem.
The internet connection itself is fine. I am talking about a direct ping to 192.168.0.1 here.
And the LAN is fine too. But we have reasons to want wireless.

Any ideas what this problem could be? It appeared out of the blue last Friday, so it's definitely not some material the house is made from. I really need that internet, as a software engineer and a gamer :\