Wireless interference

[VectraMan]

I have a desktop, and laptop, and downstairs a Netgear ADSL wireless router. For a few days the desktop has been slow on some websites, and pinging the router would lose packets or have a high return time (>100ms).

This morning it wouldn't work at all. The wierd thing is that it would pick up the available connection with excellent signal quality and no errors, yet wouldn't connect to it. I tried rebooting the router, but that made no difference.

The laptop had no problem with websites, but doing a large download I seemed to be getting narrowband speeds.

In desperation, I changed the wireless channel on the router and now it all works perfectly again.

So my question is: if something is interfering (like one of my neighbours running wireless), would that not be indicated with a poor quality signal? How can it say "excellent" with no errors and good SNR and yet not connect on that channel but be able to work on a different channel? Or is the software just lying to me?

[TheMonkey]

If it's one of those white netgear ones, I've had no end of trouble with them including problems like the one you describe. I moved to Linksys kit and it's all nice now.

[VectraMan]

Without wanting to get too technical, it's grey.

It's worked for 3 years.

[TheMonkey]

Without wanting to get too technical, it's grey.

It's worked for 3 years.

Grey / white. Same colour - different shade!

If it's worked 3 years then get the hammer out and start hitting it.

[cojak]

I like the look of the linksys router (wired) but can't see if it includes a firewall - have I missed it?

That's why I bought a Zoom router.

[TheMonkey]

Yeah they all have a firewall.

[where did my id go?]

Those remote tv thingies (tv eye?) can cause problems.

The ones that people use to transmit sky to another tv. they use a similar frequency band. Changing channel usually sorts that.

[VectraMan]

Those remote tv thingies (tv eye?) can cause problems.

The ones that people use to transmit sky to another tv. they use a similar frequency band. Changing channel usually sorts that.

I used to have one of those setup as well actually. The TV thingy never seemed to interfere with WiFi, but the WiFi would cause interference on the TV no matter what I did with the channel selections. So in the end I had to unplug the router whenever I used the TV thingy.

I used it to link TV Out from my PC upstairs to the TV downstairs.

[Ivor1]

[snaw]

I had the same issue recently - there's are probably a bucketload more people using wireless in your area than you realise, and being in the same channel will caus you problems.

Use a tool like netstumbler to pick up all the traffic, leave it on for a wee bit to monitor (You unbind TCP from your wireless card) what's being used and pick a channel that isn't.