Question ASUS AX82U with mesh node: WiFi suddenly spotty, hardline working fine

[phidelt649]

Hi all! I’m currently running an AX82U with an RT-AX1800S as a node. It’s been rock solid for over a year but over the past two weeks, my wifi (on both channels) has been trash. It seems to randomly go in and out to where I need to shut off my phones WiFi to do anything. However, our hardwired equipment is working just fine and still holding up speeds consistently (600-800mb).

I tried power cycling both the modem and the router which seems to fix the issue briefly but it always returns. I then upgraded both modules firmware to the latest and that seemed to fix it for a couple of days but now we are back to trash again. The modem is mine and is a surfboard DOCSIS3.1 I think.

Any suggestions on what to do from here? Roll back firmware? Is the main router on the fritz (originally purchased in July 2021)? I also have the main router plugged into a UPS but I don’t think that would be an issue?

I’m not great with this networking stuff and I think I’m officially at the depth of my knowledge. Thanks again!

 

[dwd999]

With wifi the first question is always how close are your neighbors? You could use a wifi analyzer app like the free one by Matt Hafner in the Microsoft store to see how many competing wifi signals there may be from your neighbors and how many signals there are on the same channel as you. It also helps to know how your routers are set, are they set to transmit on a fixed channel or are they set to auto where competing signals can result in your router changing to another channel which may not be as strong and which may result in lower throughput.

 

[phidelt649]

Thank you for the response! We live in a closely packed suburb with neighbors on both sides. It seems to have miraculously fixed itself after I yet again hard reset it but we will see. I attempted to check the channel thing you mentioned but couldn’t find the setting in the ASUS router app despite Googling it. Oddly enough, the 2.4gHz band works fine, albeit painfully slow. Any idea where I could find that setting you mentioned?

 

[dwd999]

Its labelled Control Channel in the 3.15.1 Wireless section of the settings. There's a page of settings for each band. Refer to pages 83 and 84 Item 7 in your manual.

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...X82U_RT-AX82U_V2_UM_v2_WEB.pdf?model=RT-AX82U

I usually manually set the channel to the lowest one in each band since the lower channels are usually the strongest. Hopefully if your neighbors have their routers set to the default Auto setting then they'll move onto a higher channel and leave you alone on your channel.