Poor wifi signal driving me nuts

[jonnyapps]

Hi,

I've been suffering the Virgin Superhub, well known for poor wifi reception. Yesterday I finally bought a TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 and put the virgin hub in modem mode.

The problem is my wifi woes are exactly as they were before. I can't get signal in my kitchen which is approximately 10 metres away down a corridor which has line of sight to the router. This review suggests at that range I ought to be getting a 40mb signal - I'm getting nothing. At the very best at that distance it connects but is unusable.

My router sits in my living room window which made it easy to test the distance in the opposite direction by crossing the road - the same problem occurs.

I've used the Android app, Wifi Analyser, and the channels do not look too crowded.

I'm testing at 2.4ghz with the 5ghz band turned off.

I have no cordless phone in the house (nor do my upstairs neighbours).

To the right of my house is nothing but air, to the left is a conjoined house but I don't see much interference coming from them.

At my wits end with this now and would be very grateful if someone can suggest what the problem could be.

Many thanks in advance

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Try different channels - does it change your problems?

Any baby monitors, wireless door/security cameras? Microwave ovens? Can you switch to the 5GHz band?

Are you testing the internet connection speed, or just the WiFi speed? Try testing to something plugged in to the ethernet ports - it could be a bad phone line (assuming ADSL; don't know how they deliver your internet).

Try using InSSIDer - it will show hidden APs, which some people mistakenly believe are more secure.

 

[jonnyapps]

Try different channels - does it change your problems?

Any baby monitors, wireless door/security cameras? Microwave ovens? Can you switch to the 5GHz band?

Are you testing the internet connection speed, or just the WiFi speed? Try testing to something plugged in to the ethernet ports - it could be a bad phone line (assuming ADSL; don't know how they deliver your internet).

Try using InSSIDer - it will show hidden APs, which some people mistakenly believe are more secure.

Thanks for the response.

I have a 100meg connection that works flawlessly via ethernet. No baby monitors, cameras, microwave is unplugged. The only thing I do have is a wireless thermostat for the boiler (thermostat is near router, boiler in kitchen). This got me hopeful I'd found the problem but I unplugged both boiler and thermostat and saw no change.

Unfortunately I don't have a device that works on the 5ghz band. I'm testing on a Nexus 7, a Transformer Prime and an HTC HD2.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Does it work properly if you are right next to the router?

Are you near any large radar systems?

Can you ask your neighbours if their WiFi works OK?

 

[jonnyapps]

Does it work properly if you are right next to the router?

Are you near any large radar systems?

Can you ask your neighbours if their WiFi works OK?

It does work properly right next to the router and I'm not near any radar systems that I know of.
I actually have access to upstairs so will try their router and get back to you.

UPDATE:

Just dug out the work laptop and at my 2 test points (half way to kitchen and in kitchen) I get 63mbps and 12mbps. With my HTC HD2 I get 32mbps and 6mbps.

The Transformer Prime gets 12mbps and fails in kitchen - I guess I should stop using this for testing.

UPDATE 2:

The laptop supports 5ghz and gets 72mbps at 1st point and then cannot detect the wifi in the kitchen.

This is looking like interference from the house somehow? There are 2 walls between the router and the kitchen - standard old fashioned London house. I've tried it with EVERYTHING in the whole house switched off except the router but see no difference and as said before there is a hallway between the router and kitchen that gives (near) line of sight (there's a slight bend in the corridor half way down.

 

[jonnyapps]

Having now tested upstairs, using my laptop, their 30mb connection (same provider) achieves 30mb at the half way test point and 3mb at the kitchen test point (our layouts are similar).

Here's the traffic in the area, worse than I thought. This is taken at the router. I'm 'Bacon 2.4ghz'

 

[Someone Somewhere]

My guess is that some of your devices are 1x1 antenna machines - max 65Mb/s on a 20MHz channel IIRC.

A 2x2 device, which your laptop is likely to be, will do about twice as much in an ideal world.

What are the walls made of? Are they wood studs with gib/plaster, or are they brick/concrete/solid wood? Not sure what london construction usually is.

Suggest you move to channel 6, at a guess.

 

[jonnyapps]

My guess is that some of your devices are 1x1 antenna machines - max 65Mb/s on a 20MHz channel IIRC.

A 2x2 device, which your laptop is likely to be, will do about twice as much in an ideal world.

What are the walls made of? Are they wood studs with gib/plaster, or are they brick/concrete/solid wood? Not sure what london construction usually is.

Suggest you move to channel 6, at a guess.

Thanks for the continued help.
I've tried every channel and, whilst some perform better at the half way point, all drop off in the same manner in the kitchen.

Walls are plasterboard. I had thought that it was the walls but tested in the opposite direction in the street outside and got drop off at roughly the same distance. In that instance it only had to pass through a window.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Weird - sounds like there's something else interfering. If you move the router to a different room, and test by transferring files from something plugged in to the ethernet port to something else, does it work better (that's assuming you can't get the WAN connection elsewhere?

 

[wirelessnut]

Just checking, have you tried the latest firmware update for the router? http://www.tp-link.com/en/support/download/?model=TL-WDR3600&version=V1#tbl_j

 

[jonnyapps]

Weird - sounds like there's something else interfering. If you move the router to a different room, and test by transferring files from something plugged in to the ethernet port to something else, does it work better (that's assuming you can't get the WAN connection elsewhere?

I have tried file transfers from other rooms, and the problem persists.

Yeah, one of the first things I did was upgrade to the latest firmware. I believe it was only one revision off it when I bought it.

 

[jonnyapps]

I'm now running DD-WRT. Are there any specific things I might try in there?