Very weird wireless connection problems..

[Chrozon]

I recently moved to an apartment, where I rent a small portion of the second floor of a big house. The internet here is on paper a 25/25 fiber connection, but I'm having a lot of struggles. Now to start off, I'm going to need the best advice you can give without me having to go mess with the routers and stuff, since it's in the owners part of the house and I will not have access to it without permission, and it will be difficult if I have to go back and forth all the time.

Now, there are two access points on this internet. They are both a substantial distance away from my apartment, so the connection varies between 2/5 and 4/5 bars. One of the access points have the radio type 11n, and the other one has 11g. I'm curious as to if having two different radio types can mess with connectivity. I'm using my laptop, which uses an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 wireless adapter. I'm using the driver 16.1.1, which I believe is the newest (Newest may not always be the best when it comes to Intel drivers, I've heard...).

The weird problems I have, is that if I try to connect to the 11n, which you would think is the best fit, since I have a wireless-n adapter, it gets stuck in a loop when trying to identify the network. It connects, then tries to identify, then it loses the connection completely, and repeats that cycle indefinitely. Now, sometimes, if I completely uninstall the driver software, and reinstall it, I can connect to it, and the internet will work at the speed it should work, but after an indefinite period of time, I'll be thrown out of the internet again. The time it takes to lose connection varies between 1 minute and 10 hours, so it's very weird. I've also tried removing IPv6 from the configuration, but that didn't help.

Now, if I connect to the second access point, with 11g, I get different problems. This one is much more stable (although occasionally I will get booted from this one too, but I will be able to reconnect after a while without reinstalling my drivers). The problem here is that the bandwidth is terrible. At the most I can get around 3/1, but often it's down to 0.6/0.1. I've also tried in the adapter settings to set the configuration to G-mode, but it didn't help (although I'm not sure if I did it correctly...).

Now, I also have a desktop with an ASUS N600 adapter, and it has the same exact problems, except that it also gets terrible bandwidth on the 11n one. On my phone I can connect to both access points without problems, but the bandwidth is so bad it's faster to use 3G.

I tried to go into ipconfig to get the IP of the gateway, but when I try to connect to it via browser to get to the web configuration page, I just get connection timed out. I don't know if they have a whitelist?

The weird part is that when I first got here, I didn't have that many issues. I was on my desktop with a stable connection on the 11n for about a week or two (Still with low bandwidth the entire time, no matter the access point), then it just got worse and worse.

I've sent an email to the owner about my issues, but I haven't gotten the idea that they are also experiences issues. I do not know if they only have desktop with wired connections, or if they are experiencing the same bandwidth issues, but are too soft internet users to even notice.


If any of you immediately recognize the issue and know how to solve it without multiple back and forth prodding attempts, I can ask if I can go down and fix it, but I would rather run around in their home poking and prodding on their property. If not, I just want to know things I can try on my own computer, or any advice I can get. For example if I should buy them a new router so I can set the router to N-mode, or if there is a previous driver that's better, or anything at all really. This is really getting on my nerves.

Thanks so much for reading, and for replying

 

[RealBeast]

I would start by analyzing the wireless signals, including any neighboring networks, using the free INSSIDER from you wireless computer (no need to go into their space for this). Look to see what channels that they are using, there should be two separate channels used from the non-overlapping channels 1, 6, and 11. Also, any strong neighboring networks?

 

[Chrozon]

I would start by analyzing the wireless signals, including any neighboring networks, using the free INSSIDER from you wireless computer (no need to go into their space for this). Look to see what channels that they are using, there should be two separate channels used from the non-overlapping channels 1, 6, and 11. Also, any strong neighboring networks?

The 11n network is on channel 2+6, and has a strength of around -60 dBm at the moment, while the 11g is on channel 6 only, and has a -74 dBm. There is no neighboring networks with a signal lower than -80 dBm.

The 11n is on Co-Channel with 3 networks, while overlapping 2, and the 11g is not on Co-Channel with anyone, and overlapping 1.

They are all on the 2.4GHz frequency.

Another thing is that 11n is secured by WPA2, but the 11g is only WPA.

 

[RealBeast]

I understand that you want to minimize intrusion, so you should think out your options before doing anything.

The G and N radios overlapping will reduce performance for each. (When you say the N radio is on 2+6, I assume that it is using a 40MHz wide channel.) Changing that will improve their wireless but you may be too far away to really benefit enough.

Much depends on your budget but here are a couple of other options if they would allow. I will assume any kind of cable is out.

You could use a pair of the new Zyxel PLA5205kit adapters, which work quite well as you can see in tests HERE if you have three prong sockets -- one next to their router and one in your room. If you want wireless in your room just slap a cheap router configured as an AP up there. I've used the cheaper and slower PLA4205 kit many times for clients and everyone has been happy with the distant AP giving good wireless coverage. Your close proximity to the AP and good channel selection would give you a very good signal with proper channel selection. The adapters replace an Ethernet cable to the AP. This would also be minimally intrusive with a cable from their router to the adapter in a wall socket.

One other, and more costly, possibility is a pair of ASUS RT-AC66U routers using the AC bandwidth for a wireless bridge. I've used a pair as a router to media bridge mode like THIS and they work great at long distance with a 5GHz 80MHz wide channel. You would have to do a little research if interested in that to see if they will work in AP to Media Bridge mode as well -- I never tried it as I used the primary as the router rather than an AP.

 

[Chrozon]

I understand that you want to minimize intrusion, so you should think out your options before doing anything.

The G and N radios overlapping will reduce performance for each. (When you say the N radio is on 2+6, I assume that it is using a 40MHz wide channel.) Changing that will improve their wireless but you may be too far away to really benefit enough.

Much depends on your budget but here are a couple of other options if they would allow. I will assume any kind of cable is out.

You could use a pair of the new Zyxel PLA5205kit adapters, which work quite well as you can see in tests HERE if you have three prong sockets -- one next to their router and one in your room. If you want wireless in your room just slap a cheap router configured as an AP up there. I've used the cheaper and slower PLA4205 kit many times for clients and everyone has been happy with the distant AP giving good wireless coverage. Your close proximity to the AP and good channel selection would give you a very good signal with proper channel selection. The adapters replace an Ethernet cable to the AP. This would also be minimally intrusive with a cable from their router to the adapter in a wall socket.

One other, and more costly, possibility is a pair of ASUS RT-AC66U routers using the AC bandwidth for a wireless bridge. I've used a pair as a router to media bridge mode like THIS and they work great at long distance with a 5GHz 80MHz wide channel. You would have to do a little research if interested in that to see if they will work in AP to Media Bridge mode as well -- I never tried it as I used the primary as the router rather than an AP.

The difficulty here is that there is no sockets in my room, there is absolutely no wall sockets related to internet at all, so all I got is wireless, unless I buy a very very long Ethernet cable and draw it from their router up to my room (Which probably isn't a very attractive solution). My budget is pretty limited at the moment as well, I can't really afford things that start going over 100 dollars...

When I was checking on my wireless adapter, I think it was configured at 802.11n 20MHz only, will the affect the 40MHz wide range? Also, how can I change the channel so there is no overlap?

Edit: Okay. Now I'm unable to connect to the 11n AP again, but I'm on the 11g. The weird thing was, that I set the value for 802.11n 2.4GHz range thing from 20MHz only, to Auto. Now the speed on the 11g boosted a lot. It's usually around 3/1, but it went up to 16/4. Still not the 25/25 I want, but it's something.

 

[RealBeast]

A 40MHz wide 2.4GHz N channel takes up the equivalent of 8 channels, so with one 40MHz channel you don't have room for an additional 20MHz non-overlapping channel in the US -- basically using one 40MHz channel means that you will have interference with any other 2.4GHz wireless. So the answer is that you cannot prevent overlap.

The cheapest and best alternative is to run a cable if at all feasible. No other solution is under $100.

 

[Chrozon]

A 40MHz wide 2.4GHz N channel takes up the equivalent of 8 channels, so with one 40MHz channel you don't have room for an additional 20MHz non-overlapping channel in the US -- basically using one 40MHz channel means that you will have interference with any other 2.4GHz wireless. So the answer is that you cannot prevent overlap.

The cheapest and best alternative is to run a cable if at all feasible. No other solution is under $100.

But is there a way, if I can get into the router configuration, to set the 11n to a single channel 20 MHz so there is no overlap?

 

[RealBeast]

Sorry I was thinking that you said 2+7 earlier, since 2+6 doesn't really make sense for a 40MHz wide channel (they should be on 1+6).

Since they are using channel 2+6 you can still use channel 11, and it should be useable if other powerful local networks are not on channel 11.

You would have to do that on the G radio though, since the N is already set to 2+6, unless you add another AP (and if you do consider dual band so you can use 40MHz wide channels on the 5GHz band if your adapter also supports 5GHz).

 

[Chrozon]

Sorry I was thinking that you said 2+7 earlier, since 2+6 doesn't really make sense for a 40MHz wide channel. Since they are using channel 2+6 you can still use channel 11, and while there may be a small overlap at low energy as you can see HERE, it should be useable if other powerful local networks are not on channel 11.

It changed today on inSSIDer, it's no longer 2+6, it's 3+7 now, and the internet has been even worse since the change.

Edit: I talked to the owners and got the password for the router, and i went in and changed the channel to 20MHz mode and channel 11 on the 11n router. So far it seems the problems have disappeared, although I can't get a very good speed, but I think that's just the wireless' range fault. I tried speedtesting with an ethernet cable to the router and got 50/50, and got 30/30 with wireless right next to the router, 20/20 in my living room upstairs and around 10/10 in my bedroom.

He also said he might consider pulling a cable up to my apartment, which is great, then I can buy my own wireless router and the problems will definitely go away