Question Wireless - Good Signal, but Cutting Out

[Baldrick]

Hi all. I recently replaced my xfinity router/modem with an Arris SB8200 (refurbished) and a new Asus RX-AC68U router.

The wifi in the house is horrible now. I actually replaced the router thinking it was bad. Same thing. What's weird is, the signal seems okay. A steady minus 50 - 60 db where I sit on my front porch which is through a brick wall. My daughters are having similar problems in their bedrooms with better signal strength. In my bedroom, I've got about -50db. Nothing in the house is more than 35' away. The devices say I'm still connected, but I'm not. I have to disconnect and reconnect. This happens every couple of minutes.

We own a 2000 sq/ft ranch house and the router is centrally located in the basement. I had an old wireless router with DD-WRT loaded and tried that as a repeater. Small improvement.

The hardwired devices seem fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[Lutfij]

You might want to see if the Asus router, you've moved to, has any firmware updates pending. Following that, you might want to perch the router up to a point that is well above eye level and above the tallest appliances in your house, meaning if the fridge is the tallest appliance, have the router a feet above that. That should help with line of sight with devices. As for your crib, are all walls made of brick or hollow?

centrally located in the basement
That's the first problem. The router should be located in the middle of your household, if you imagined the house to be a sphere, it should be at the center of the sphere(hamster ball).

 

[Baldrick]

Thanks for the reply.

I thought the Asus router would behave better than the xfinity. I had no real problems with the old one - aside from the $14/month rental. The unit is about 1' below the ceiling in the basement and as I said, it's just a ranch house. I would have thought that wouldn't pose too much a problem for a supposedly decent router.

The brick wall on the outside of my house is only brick 4' high. The rest is wood siding. The walls are actually stick-framed.

I'm trying to avoid bringing the router upstairs. I'd have to run two CAT6 cables to it because I need it to feed my switch in the basement. But, if I have to, I have to...

My real question is, does this indicate a crappy router or does it sound fairly normal?

Thanks!

 

[Baldrick]

Okay, I took the advice given and ran two CAT6 cables upstairs and into the kitchen which is close to centrally located in the house. The router is now only 20 feet through a window to my table outside and yet I still lose connection every five or so minutes.

I have the WIFI Analyzer app on my phone and it tells me the signal strength is a solid -45 to -50db. I've got full bars according to the laptop. The laptop works with no problems in the bedroom which is twice as far away.

At this point I'm thinking of just going with a different router. Any recommendations?

 

[gggplaya]

I had a similar problem on an Asus router AC68U. First, is this a genuine AC68U or a refurb T-Mobile unit?

2nd, the antenna seemed loose in the device I bought, and it turns out it was broken. Removing that loose antenna completely solved the issue, but I was only left with 2 antennas so I returned it.

 

[Baldrick]

This is the 2nd new from Amazon AC68U I've tried. Both behaved the same.

Thanks!

 

[Baldrick]

Now, I have an Asus RT-AC86U coming today. Hopefully it will cure all of the problems. I hope it's not an Asus thing. I've been buying their motherboards off and on for 20 years with no problems.

 

[Baldrick]

Well, I got the new RT-AC86U yesterday. Everything is working great with zero drops.

I'm thinking I just got two bad AC68U's in a row.

Thanks all.