My Wifi has suddenly gotten worse - any ideas?

Mad Mike

My home wifi network has gotten much worse recently and it is frustrating my efforts to fix it. I would be grateful for any ideas.

Slightly long story but may give someone a hint:

I am using a Canyon 802.11g wireless router with two computers hardwired into it and broadcasting wifi around the house for phones and laptops. The router is a few years old but has always given a good strong signal until recently. Now I get a very poor signal unless I am close to the router. For example we used to get a great signal in the upstairs bedroom and now I get one or no bars upstairs making the network unusable.

The suspicious thing is that the degradation happened around about the same time as we switched to UPC (from DSL) for broadband BUT I am not using the UPC wireless router - I simply pass the signal through it (using DMZ) with a wired connection to my old Canyon router. The Canyon is connected the same way it has been for years except it is now plugged into UPC's modem rather than a DSL modem.

One thought I had is that I am getting interference from the UPC modem router but even when the UPC modem is plugged out I still get a much weaker signal from my Canyon than I used to. in any casee the wireless function of the UPC Cisco router is turned off (I even removed the aerial).

I have tried changing the wifi channel but no setting seems to make a difference.

Other changes that may be relevant:
- Changed out Eircom phonewatch alarm connection from land line to mobile connection. Could this be interfering?

- Moved a bit of furniture around (specifically moved a computer desk that used to be beside the Canon router about three feet away). This computer is wired to the router and has a perfect internet connection.

- I tried using the wireless function on the UPC Cisco modem and it was no better. I don't want to do this anyway because our cable access point is not convenient to our computers.

Any thoughts?

altor

It could be something interfering with the signal. I would not think the GSM P.W use would interfere with the signal. Have you got any wire free phones installed since this has happened ?

dub45

Have you checked to see what wireless networks are around you?

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

Also is the Canyon a genuine wireless router or integrated with a dsl modem?

Mad Mike

Thanks for the replies folks.

@altor - Like you I don't think the gsm signal should interfere. I did some tests waving a phone next to the alarm transmitter and it didn't seem to affect wifi reception. No other new phones installed I am afraid.

@dub45 That looks like a handy tool. I am going to install it on a laptop tomorrow and sniff around. The Canyon is a genuine router, I've had it from the days before broadband companies threw in a free wireless modem. It is this model: http://www.canyon-tech.com/archive/connectivity/wireless/CN-WF514

rebeve

Change ur radio channel 6 is the default so change it to something else .That should do the trick .

altor

Have you considered a fault with the unit itself ?

Mad Mike

I eventually got time to look into this problem at the weekend and your suggestions turned out to be very helpful.

Using Inssider on a laptop I sniffed all around the house and convinced myself that signal strength isn't the problem. Even though I get plenty of stray signals from my neighbours my own wifi signal was much stronger and clearly stands out from the crowd. However even though I could see a clear signal on inssider my internet connectivity was extremely unreliable.

Next I turned off my internet modem and tried just connecting to the wireles router on its own. Even without an internet connection I should have been able to log into the routers control panel. However I found a similar story - unless I was sitting on top of the router I wasn't able to reliably access its control panel.

To cut a long story short I bit the bullet yesterday and bought a new wireless router (a Belkin N300). Even though the signal strength from the new router is no better than the old router my internet connectivity is much much better. Now if I can see the network I can connect to the internet whereas with the old router I needed full signal strength to get a connection. Given the random nature of the fault I will wait a few days before declaring the problem fully solved but I am reasonably optimistic.

I suppose in hindsight it is obvious there was a problem with the router but I was stuck on the fact that the router has worked for years and the problem only started when I switched broadband provider. It felt like too much of a coincidence for the router to pick that specific moment to die.

Thank you all anyway for your helpful suggestions.

dub45

Thanks for taking the time to reply - it is always helpful to know what the outcome of these queries is. I hope that the new router is the answer to your problem.

DanWall

You never changed the channel as rebev suggested, you next door neighbour could be the problem on the same channel

Mad Mike

Hi Danwall

I should have mentioned I tried multiple channels. The Inssider programme actually shows you all your neighbours wifi signals so I even tried to pick channels that had nothing on them (hard to do because of the number of neighbours who have wifi).