Flaky wireless?

January 6, 2010 2:13 PM

Yet another wireless networking question.

Comcast ISP. Cable modem connected to Netgear wireless router. Desktop PC connected to router via Ethernet cable. Two laptops, one netbook, two iPhones, one AirPort Express used to stream iTunes and BluRay player/Netflix streamer box connected wirelessly. Not all used at the same time.

Everything works, most of the time. We generally are not using everything at once. The problem is that my iPhone, which used to jump on my network as soon as I walked in the door sometimes connects and sometimes does not. We've also had movies stop streaming.

The latest addition is the BluRay player. The only recent change, other than adding the BluRay player was increasing the router speed from 'neighbor friendly' 150 whatevers to 300 (mps?)

I considered moving the cable modem and router from the office to the living room, using a coax splitter to feed the cable modem and cable TV box. Then I'd connect the BluRay player with an Ethernet cable.

Recycling the wireless router always fixes the problem, but I'd like a little more stability. Is there anything obvious I'm missing?

posted by fixedgear to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

How many IP addresses are available in the DHCP cache?
posted by IanMorr at 2:17 PM on January 6, 2010

cache? I mean pool.
posted by IanMorr at 2:18 PM on January 6, 2010

How old is your wireless router? I had one that got flaky on me and after pulling my hair out I bought another and it's been smooth sailing ever since.
posted by unixrat at 2:23 PM on January 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I think they are assigned automagically? That is to say, I don't know.
posted by fixedgear at 2:24 PM on January 6, 2010

Response by poster: It's pretty new, like less than six month old. it replaced a Linksys that gave up the ghost after four years or so.
posted by fixedgear at 2:25 PM on January 6, 2010

Ditto unixrat's solution. Overheating has been a significant problem with wireless routers in my experience. They get worse with time. All consumer brands seem approximately equal in longevity.
posted by bonehead at 2:26 PM on January 6, 2010

Agree with what unixrat and bonehead said above. Heat may be a problem. Is there any heat sources directly adjacent to your router? Is it sitting on top of another device that produces heat? If you want to see if heat is any issue you can always have a fan nearby that blows on the router all the time or open the router case and do the same thing. You may be on the right track by trying to remove some of the devices from the router. Every packet that traverses the router will add to processor usage and subsequent heat load.
posted by white_devil at 2:38 PM on January 6, 2010

Do you have significant bittorrenting occurring on your network? On default settings, bittorrent clients will wreak havoc with many router models because of the number of connections the clients establish. Symptoms include timing out while trying to connect to the network and sudden interruptions in the connection. The solution is to set the global connection limit to something around 10 as opposed to the default value of several hundred. I've taken on the task of administering the network at my co-op and have had to harangue people at meetings and change settings on several bittorrent installations to get things running (more) smoothly.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 2:54 PM on January 6, 2010

Response by poster: Never used bittorrent in my life. I'm leaning towards, yes, the router is borderline reaching its capacity. It's on top of a desk, but it's not particularly hot there. I almost convinced my wife to let me move the PC, modem and router to the living room. That would allow me to connect BluRay player and PC via Ethernet and lighten the load on the wirless portion of the router, anyway.
posted by fixedgear at 3:11 PM on January 6, 2010

Do you have any wireless phones (household, land line type) operating in the area? Try switching the ID of the station to 1 or 11.
posted by ezekieldas at 3:53 PM on January 6, 2010

Response by poster: As a matter of fact the wireless land line phone is located approximately six inches from the router. I'm gonna have to dig out the manual and try switching the channel.
posted by fixedgear at 4:03 PM on January 6, 2010

You may not be able to change the ID of the phone station --but surely the wireless station, somewhere in the web admin thingy.
posted by ezekieldas at 4:15 PM on January 6, 2010

Response by poster: I switched the wireless router from 'auto' to channel 1. I think I may move the phone also. The router instructions say don't locate it near a PC which seems kind of insane, but maybe I will put it on a shelf.
posted by fixedgear at 4:40 PM on January 6, 2010

Also, does it drop when you run the microwave? 2.4 Ghz wireless phones and microwave ovens will cause temporary outages in 802.11 networks.
posted by cosmicbandito at 9:03 PM on January 6, 2010

Response by poster: No, someone else suggested microwave, but that is not happening. The land line also clearly says right on the phone that it's 5.8 Ghz. When I went to bed last night my iPhone was on my WiFi network. It charged overnight, I took it off standby, and it didn't detect and connect to the network as it is supposed to.
posted by fixedgear at 6:55 AM on January 7, 2010