Major Wireless Interference

[sagosto]

I have major WiFi interference problems and I cannot determine the cultprit(s). I have at least 3 machines using Wifi, iPad, iTouch, 3 phones, 5 wireless land lines, wireless printer, Roku, Wii, and playstation 2 (Wifi?) that are connected to a NETGEAR N600 router that sits on top of my fridge. I also have a Denon 2112CI that is hardlined to the router and WiFi speakers (http://www.outdoorspeakerdepot.com/wireless-outdoor-patio-speaker.html) on the porch and wireless speakers connected via Rocketfish (Rocketfish Universal Wireless Rear Speaker Kit (RF-WHTIB)) in the living room where the Denon lives. The speakers wireless adapter is connected directly to the Denon which is on the other side of the wall from the router. My WiFi contantly drops off forcing me to reset the router every other day or so. Also, when I use the Wifi speakers on the porch, I get a lot of interference when using my iTouch/iPad's AirPlay. There's a button on the outdoor speakers wireless adapter to change channels but it just destroys the entire Wifi until I unplug the wireless adapter.

Is there a better router I should get to avoid these issues? I wanted a Wifi baby monitor but the wife is already breaking my balls as it is.

 

[bill001g]

Your best bet is to move as much as you possibly can to the 5g band. Most wireless equipment like speakers,cordless phones, security cameras etc that operate on the 2.4g band do not use the same protocol as 802.11 2.4g wireless. Some use the complete band leaving nothing for others. Even if they do not use the whole band they tend to not use the same concept of channels so it is highly likely they will interfere. There is no way for your routers/pc to detect these transmissions so the mechanisms to avoid transmission at the same time do not work.

The only way you are going to see what is going on is with a spectrum analyzer. Metageek is one of the few that makes one that is even close to affordable but it is actually cheaper to buy a outdoor airgrid bridge from ubiquiti since it has a similar spectrum analyzer that they throw in for free.

Still all this will tell you pretty much what you know the speaker system is transmitting on the same frequencies as your wireless. The trick will be to try to find part of the 2.4g band the speakers do not use.....it is not clearly documented how much bandwidth they really use and I am too lazy to dig though the fcc database to find it.

Likely you are going to only have 2 choices. You move all your equipment to the the 5g frequencies and let the speakers have the 2.4g or you get speakers that run on a different frequency preferably something like 900m so they avoid both the 2.4 and 5g bands.

 

[bobsilver]

Yes 5ghz is a much less crowded band. Plus you are using a lot of devices wirelessly all of which have some communication going at atimes which eats your bandwidth at times.

Look also at routers with high cpu processing abilities like the NETGEAR R7000. Since you have many devices you also may have some slow down at the cpu level in the router.

You can check your wifi noise and interference by using either Netspot for the Mac or inSSIDer for the pc. This will show you signal strength, channels and nosie floors. Very informative. You can then try using this for better placement of your router within the house.

Placing the router on a refrigerator is not great either,. The compressor motor may be creating some interference. But it is a trail and error approach to find the best location and placement.

Bob Silver
NETGEAR Networking Consultant

 

[sagosto]

Thanks for the help. I think I have two issues. Even if I remove the wireless speakers, I still suffer from network drop offs, RDP stutters, etc. I typically reboot the router every 1-3 days to avoid these issues. Since my download speeds are so fast (50-100MB down), it seems to cover up some of these issues.

I currently have 2 wired and 10 wireless devices (3 PCs, iPhone5, BB, iTouch, Roku, wireless printer, and something else) on the 2.4G. Is that a lot? I don't have the easy ability to just move them to the 5G band. In fact, I doubt any of them even have that capability. Here's a link to my insidder: http://http://www.shawnaugust.com/inssider.jpg

 

[bill001g]

The number of wireless devices actually depends on the traffic rates they generate. You can have lots of devices that are just connected to the router doing very little but it only takes a couple to saturate the wireless. Most times you exceed your ISP before you hit the wireless limit.

If your wired devices are being affected either the router has some capacity issue or you have some issue with the ISP connection. You need to get the wired devices to work correctly all the time before you chase wireless. Wireless is extremely hard to find issues so you want to be sure it really is the problem before you go that path. If you suspect the router the first option is always to try to find the latest firmware.

Wireless issues should not be corrected by rebooting the router unless there is some strange device connected to it.

I used to blame the roku for many of my problems but it doesn't actually use the wireless channel it creates much. Why they intentionally overlap your main network and let you have no control is just stupid. Still all it uses this SSID for is to run the remote control which is extremely low bandwidth unless you are using it to listen to the audio via the headphone jack on the remote. It does use quite a bit a bandwidth when you watch stuff but no more than any other device say on netflix or hulu etc.

 

[sagosto]

The number of wireless devices actually depends on the traffic rates they generate. You can have lots of devices that are just connected to the router doing very little but it only takes a couple to saturate the wireless. Most times you exceed your ISP before you hit the wireless limit.

Please define "exceed".

If your wired devices are being affected either the router has some capacity issue or you have some issue with the ISP connection. You need to get the wired devices to work correctly all the time before you chase wireless. Wireless is extremely hard to find issues so you want to be sure it really is the problem before you go that path. If you suspect the router the first option is always to try to find the latest firmware.

I no longer have access to the firmware as it is now handled at the ISP level and settings are pushed down.

I don't think I have any wired issues. Network is always reliable and very fast (60-80MB down).

Wireless issues should not be corrected by rebooting the router unless there is some strange device connected to it.

I used to blame the roku for many of my problems but it doesn't actually use the wireless channel it creates much. Why they intentionally overlap your main network and let you have no control is just stupid. Still all it uses this SSID for is to run the remote control which is extremely low bandwidth unless you are using it to listen to the audio via the headphone jack on the remote. It does use quite a bit a bandwidth when you watch stuff but no more than any other device say on netflix or hulu etc.

Yes, the reboot is a bandaid. I guess Roku isn't that big of a deal as I don't use it much but I was happy to get it off the 2.4GHZ. I am not sure why it won't connect. The iTouch doesn't have 5GHZ capability which isn't surprising. My Brother HL-3070 printer doesn't either. I have 2 other machines that don't have 5GHZ either. I suspect 2 on the 5GHZ didn't do much for me.

 

[bill001g]

I was typing too fast "exceed your ISP bandwidth". Now if you have google fiber at 1g then the wireless might bottleneck you before your connection does.

I could see if your wireless issues were it ran really bad when certain combinations of devices where on or maybe based on where a device was located but it should not be corrected by rebooting. To a point it could fix it if some application on a end device would crash and it would take time to get fully restarted. If you can not do much with the router then it is the tedious process of turning off wireless device and trying to find the combination or the one that causes the issue. I would see if you can borrow a router and disable the wireless on your current router. You would plug the temporary in the main router. This would tell you for sure if it was some firmware or other issue with the router itself or if you had a device causing a problem.

 

[sagosto]

Moved 6 of the 8 wireless devices to the 5GHZ band. I am going to re-test soon to see if issue is resolved.

Thanks all.

 

[sagosto]

Update. 5GHZ network SSID keeps dropping while the 2.4GHZ network stays up. The device doesn't even see the 5GHZ unless 1) Long wait 2) Reboot of the router.