New Apartment. WIFI Hell.

justindublin

Hey Guys,

I'm hoping someone has experience this before and can point me in the right direction.

I just moved into a new apartment and getting WIFI to work is proving absolute hell. For some reason nothing seems to be able to hold a connection to the network for longer than a couple minutes and thats even if I manage to join at all.

I've tried three different routers, a Edimax, Netgear and a Ruckus (provided by magnet) and all suffer the same problem.

I've tried every different type of security setting, No joy.
Then went security free and used MAC address filtering instead, No joy.
Factory reset each router, No joy.
Tried 5 different channels, No joy.
Tried different connection settings (B/G/N), No joy
Moved it to three different locations around the apartment, No joy.
Put it on a surge protector, No joy.
Updated firmwares, No joy.

I downloaded a WIFI scanner and everything seems to be on channel 11 so I moved to different ones, only about 5 others register anyway.

I work in IT and it has me and the rest of the guys stumped.

Anyone every experienced this before?

Annoyingly the only way I'm able to write this is because the neighbours (unsecured) WIFI works fine.

Cheers in advanced!

Diggerdunne

Maybe talk to the neighbour and see what his setup is? Are magnet thru a phone line?? Is it filtered?

Zab

This is the wifi that's cutting out, correct? i.e. if you hook up with an ethernet cable then it works fine?

If you turn off all forms of security, including MAC address filtering (or even do a factory reset on your WAP) does it work (there may be settings you need if there's a modem incorporated)?

Only use the non-overlapping channels listed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels.

PlanIT Computing

Baby monitors / av senders can cause havoc with wireless routers - any toddlers / babies next door?

ressem

Have you borrowed a phone / tablet / usb or pciExpress wifi device?

Some internal wifi cards just flat out disagree with selected devices in ways that are too expensive to debug. Even occurs with branded and pricey devices (e.g. 3com + intel wifi) that should be tested and standards compliant. And you'll wait forever for a firmware fix.

who_me

There are several apps out there (I use Wifi Explorer on Mac) which show you the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks within range, so you can pick the best channel - if that is the cause. It'll also show the signal/noise levels so you'll know if it's a problem with signal strength or interference.

You could try switching to 5GHz too which might help, but only if your devices support it - the iPhone for instance can't connect to to a 5GHz network.