Not one, but two routers dropping their Wifi

[nkarasch]

I had an old Linksys router that was fine for years, all of a sudden the wireless started dropping. The wifi light would remain on, but no computers could see the wireless connection. Unplugging it and plugging it back in worked for a while, but it got to the point where it wouldn't even turn on.

I went out and got a brand new Netgear and it is doing the exact same thing, fine at first but barely functional a week later.

I am in an old house, could the electrical system be doing this? Some kind of interference? I live close to a lot of other houses and there are about 10 wifi connections in range.

 

[Deleted member 904905]

Most likely interference from one or more of the nearby access points on the same channel as you. Assuming you're in North America there are only 3 channels that do not overlap any others (1, 6, 11). Virtually everything sold is defaulted to channel 6 (instant conflicts). Try channel 1 or 11 and see if things improve.

If you want to see who's on what channel then give inSSIDer ( http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ ) a try.

 

[nkarasch]

Thanks for that software, it is very cool. Now I'm having a problem getting any speed out of the router when I change which channel it is on. Weird stuff.