Bizarre wifi problem

[Christian2000]

Hello all,

I'm in uber need of some help please. My Fritzbox 3390 can no longer be seen by my laptop, or two friends laptops I've tried, yet my phone (Xperia Z) still sees it and connects perfectly. The laptops range in age from 6 months to 6 years, and mine (a 3 year old Toshiba) has connected fine for the last few months, yet neither it nor the other two can see the router now.

Both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz are turned on so far as I can see, and when I delete the connection from my phone it immediately detects it again. I'm baffled, and not a little fed up :-/

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

[Calculagator]

I'm not sure what the problem is, but it could be that only the 5GHz is working even though they should both be turned on. I use a handy little app on my phone caled "Wifi Analyzer" to troubleshoot wifi issues. It will show exactly what networks are broadcasting, their strength, and their frequency/channel. You could use that to see if it is actually broadcasting in both 2.4 and 5 GHz. You can also see if there is another network that could be causing interference.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Have you removed power to the wireless device, rebooted, checked for firmware updates, reset the device to factory defaults, reoriented the main unit or it's antennas to avoid interference, or possibly even configured it with non-standard settings that your PCs are failing to recognize? Have you done anything at all to it recently? Has it been hit by a power loss, brown out, or spike condition? Is it near an electrical panel, microwave, or other high voltage power devices?

 

[Christian2000]

Thanks Calculagator, that's proved a point at least; Wifi Analyzer is showing the 5G signal but nothing for 2.4G. I've tried turning it on and off and changing the radio channel, but still nothing. I'll have a bash at unplugging the router for a few minutes, see if that refreshes it.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

How long has the router been running without a restart? I've seen routers that can dump their wireless connection within a day of heavy usage.

 

[Christian2000]

Hello again all,

Well, it's been cured as a side effect. I was about to unplug it but noticed in the staus that a firmware update was available, so I thought I'd install it on the off chance that it would cause enough of a refresh/reboot to kick the 2.4GHz back into life and thankfully it worked. Perhaps bigpinkdragon is right and it was just a case of time, although it's been up for weeks before with no problem. Anyway, it's yet another lesson learned, so thanks for the replies all.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Glad to hear you're back in business. 🙂