Question Lose WIFI -Goes on and off

[BOB1901]

I have a NIGHT HAWK RAX45-firmware ver V1.0.16.132, it is 4-5 years old. About a few weeks ago the signal started to buffer a great deal. My wife's phone call started dropping or she could not hear the other person on the live in seconds. We needed WIFI calling enabled because our cell signal is not very good here. Now some times of the day the wifi goes on and off. I have my desktop connected to the router by cable and have never experienced it going out. So I believe the problem is with the wifi. How do I test it if possible being it only happens now and then?

 

[COLGeek]

How many devices are wirelessly connecting to your router?

Other than your own, how many wireless networks can you detect from any of your devices?

 

[bill001g]

Testing random wifi issues is always a massive challenge.

What I would first do is the standard try other radio channels. Try to set the 2.4 and 5 ssid different so you can force which band it uses. 5 tends to be faster but less stable because the signal does not propagate through walls is easily.

This likely is interference from one of your neighbors.

There is the rare chance that the wifi chip in the router is going bad but that is rather uncommon. I was rather surprised that the router is wifi6 when you said it was almost 5yrs old. Time sure goes by fast.

 

[BOB1901]

How many devices are wirelessly connecting to your router?---I have 2 Apple phones +2 wireless computer+usual 1 or 2 TVs on at a time plus an extener so I could get a good signal in BSMT+a verizon extender because cell service is not good.

Other than your own, how many wireless networks can you detect from any of your devices?--I have always picked up about 5 other wireless signals.

All the problems have started to happen a few weeks ago. Here and there I would have a problem with the wifi signals. Now it has gotten really bad at all different times of the day.
I have Verizon FIOS-D/L 82Mbps, upload 90Mbps. We usually watch one program at a time. With these mature eyes, we do not care what kind of picture quality we see.

 

[COLGeek]

Your router should have a utility to survey the wireless "terrain" to identify less congested channels (that you share this with your neighbors). Have you used this function?

 

[BOB1901]

1- I am not sure what surveying the wireless terrain is.
2 On the amp I have device manager, security, internet speed parental controls, wifi setting guest wifi, traffic meter, and support (only goes to a page that you cannot do much there).
3-I forgot I have a few more items on wifi-4 wifi thermostats, wifi printers (only one on all the time), and 4 amazons for the 4 TVs (only use 1 or 2 most of the time--going to move 3 of the TVs to hard wire later in the week. Going to try to take stuff off the wifi if too much is on wifi.

 

[COLGeek]

Wireless terrain was a way of referring to the wireless congestion in your local area. Like a survey.

 

[BOB1901]

I went to the router home page. I was looking at the channels that are used and on channels 1-11 it is on AUTO. ON another channel it is XXXDFS. When I looked up what DFS stands for I thought of a new MINI CELL TOWER about 100-150 feet from my house. In my area, they put these mini cell towers on poles or metal light poles in the street. These new mini towers are supposed to bring 5G to the area. With, their activating this cell tower would it affect the DFS channel? From what I read the DFS channel is supposed to work with the router's 5g signal. If it might affect the DFS channel should I choose a different DFS channel or just move to a regular channel?
Sorry, but I have no idea what to do. Just guessing this DFS might be part of my problem. Getting, a little too mature to understand the stuff I used to.

 

[COLGeek]

5G cellular service has nothing to do with home wireless networks (2.4/5Ghz).

Completely different protocols.

The G in 5G stands for generation.

 

[BOB1901]

Would changing DFS to another DFS channel or another NONDFS channel hurt the problem? I'm not sure how I would do it. I'm just trying to isolate the problem. So far, I have connected Cat6 to 2 TVs, and there is no buffering as of now.

 

[bill001g]

It is not likely signal from cell tower that would interfere. The DFS bands run licensed traffic. The most common one is weather radar but it can be military stuff also. This is hard to say for sure it depend on exactly where you live because the radio bands are licensed to different companies. Kinda like how you get the same FM radio station number in different cites that are different radio stations.

In theory at least the router is support so detect the DFS signal and choose a different one. Also depending on the country many of the DFS channels run at a lower power level so the signal does not travel as far in your house.

It is always best to try to not use the DFS channels. If you are running wifi6 and trying to use 160mhz channels these always overlap the DFS bands. This is why wifi6e which uses 6ghz is better there is lots of bandwidth on 6ghz without the messy DFS issues.