Brand new RT-N66U - wireless connection problems

[diggityDawg]

I just got a new RT-N66U to replace an old Linksys router. I setup the new router in my server closet where I have my cable modem, home server, etc. Same place I had the old Linksys. What I'm experiencing is the wireless signal is extremely unreliable on the new router. I'm sure it's some setting I don't understand, but here's what I'm experiencing that I could use help with:

1. The main problem is my wife's laptop. I set the password for the 2.4ghz network, and it takes forever to authenticate. But eventually it does, and then it's very slow. After a short time, it drops the wireless connection. I can re-establish it, but since the laptop is about 20 feet away from the router it seems ridiculous. There is one wall between the router and the laptop, but again, the wireless on the old Linksys was in the same spot and the signal was rock solid.
2. I can connect my iPad (old iPad 1), but only to the 5ghz network. I re-typed the 2.4ghz password about 20 times and it would never accept it. It just kept saying 'could not connect to network' over and over again. I finally selected the 5ghz network from the list (it doesn't even show up on my other wireless devices) and it connected immediately.
3. I had connected my iPhone to the 2.4ghz wireless right away. Then last night I was upstairs and noticed the iPhone lost it's connection. I tried to re-establish it - keep in mind the 2.4ghz network is showing up in the list of networks with full signal strength - and I could NOT get it to accept the password and connect. I gave up after 5 or 6 tries.

I suppose it could be a signal issue, but I think it's more likely there's something interfering with the wireless network and it's breaking the connections. Or I've set something in the router config that is breaking the wireless connection...?

The only other network I have is the 5ghz on the same router. No other wireless sources are in the house, and the closest wireless networks have very weak signals in my house. The house itself is not that large - about 2200 sq ft - and it's fairly compact in it's design, so you're never more than about 200 ft from the router, which is downstairs in a central location. I do have all of the antennas connected to the router - and maybe I don't need them all? Also, I think I only have 802.11g and n devices. The laptop is using 802.11g, and I think our iPhones (4S) use 802.11n? The other devices in the house, and we do have a media server, home server, AppleTV, xbox, Ooma, etc. are all hard wired to the network, so no wireless needed. That all seems to work just fine.

Any ideas what I could try to get this working?

Thanks!!

Eddie

 

[got_milk]

What firmware version are you running? Builds 246 and 260 had wireless driver issues especially on the 2.4GHz band. If you're not running build 270, I would suggest updating to that and trying again.

For your wife's laptop, I'd also make sure the wireless drivers are up to date. I've seen similar issues before and fixed them just by updating the drivers on the laptop.

 

[diggityDawg]

I'm at work now, so can't check the version, but I know it updated the firmware as soon as I completed the internet setup. I went to the ASUS website and checked, and it was the the most recent version of the firmware.

I will check the wireless driver for my wife's laptop, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[diggityDawg]

So I checked and her laptop is using the most current wireless drivers. I tried a bunch of things to get it connected to the wireless network and it does connect, but it says "No Internet Access", and that's not going to work. I manually added the 5ghz network, but it doesn't show up as a network to connect to. I went through a bunch of Windows troubleshooting steps and none of them resolved the issue. So here's where I'm at:

The laptop sees the 2.4ghz network and can connect with the password, but it's very slow, and has no internet access. Sometimes when I try to connect it seems to get stuck on "Identifying...", if that helps at all... Pinging her machine doesn't work - "Destination host unreachable". I CAN connect both of our iPhones and my iPad now and those all seem to be holding the connection just fine. So I'm down to this laptop. I guess I can call Asus, but was hoping to avoid that painful process.

Thanks again for your help!

Eddie

 

[RogerSC]

So I checked and her laptop is using the most current wireless drivers. I tried a bunch of things to get it connected to the wireless network and it does connect, but it says "No Internet Access", and that's not going to work. I manually added the 5ghz network, but it doesn't show up as a network to connect to. I went through a bunch of Windows troubleshooting steps and none of them resolved the issue. So here's where I'm at:

The laptop sees the 2.4ghz network and can connect with the password, but it's very slow, and has no internet access. Sometimes when I try to connect it seems to get stuck on "Identifying...", if that helps at all... Pinging her machine doesn't work - "Destination host unreachable". I CAN connect both of our iPhones and my iPad now and those all seem to be holding the connection just fine. So I'm down to this laptop. I guess I can call Asus, but was hoping to avoid that painful process.

Thanks again for your help!

Eddie

Did you erase your nvram before entering your settings? If I were you, before calling Asus, I would erase the nvram on your router, then power-cycle it, and re-enter your settings manually and see if that helps. If you've already tried that, never mind *smile*.

 

[Pierino]

If you have windows xp on the laptop it might be a setting that needs unticked, but I don't remember exactly where it is. I had to hunt it down. I googled something like "identifying and authenticating wireless settings in google.
I don't have an xp rig anymore.

Chances are really high that her laptop can't connect to the 5ghz because it doesn't have a dual band wifi card in it.

 

[diggityDawg]

Actually, even though it's pretty old, it's running Windows 7. I didn't think about the dual band thing, but that makes sense. I've got a USB wireless stick at work that I'll bring home tomorrow and see if I can connect with that instead of her built-in wireless.

 

[huotg01]

This problem is probably not related to the router (unless the router is not connected to internet). Did windows asked you if it was a public network, an office network, or a residential network?

Envoyé depuis mon SGH-I717D avec Tapatalk

 

[diggityDawg]

I brought the USB stick home and plugged it into my wife's laptop and it connected right away. I disabled the internal wireless adapter, so there's no conflict, and it seems to have done the trick for her. Unfortunately I am still having issues with my iPhone 4S. When I'm upstairs it constantly loses the wireless connection. It's very odd - I click connect and it just says "Unable to connect to network". I forget the network, then put the password in, and it still gives the same error, but after about 10 times hitting the "Join" button, it finally connects.

The strength is maximum, and as I mentioned, the house isn't that big, and the phone would always connect to the old router when I was within 100 yards of the house, so I can't believe this Asus router has a weaker signal. I played with the idea of disabling the 5ghz radio, but not sure that would solve anything, and for some reason my old iPad 1 prefers to connect to that network - it hasn't lost the connection since I established it a few days ago...

It's probably an iPhone issue, but just frustrating to have to go through all of this - you hope when you get a new router that the setup process will be simpler and cleaner with the newer technology, but I guess I'm being naive.

Thanks for the help!

Eddie

 

[igoforthebest]

Hi diggityDawg,
I'm having the same problems on my Asus N55U router. After going through a couple of troubleshooting steps i figured out that the problem is with the authentication. If i set my 2.4ghz to have no security it works fine. as soon as i change the security to wep or wpa or wpa2 it cripples. my 5ghz side of the wireless works fine.
If i happen to find a solution i'll post it here.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Wondering if you checked b,g protection box checked on 2.4GHz band? Have you surveyed your neighborhood with inSSIDer on both bands to pick out best channel for you? Use fixed channel, 20MHz band width, don't set anything into "auto" setting. Does your closet have good air circulation for cooling? New router runs much warmer. One more, if you are willing, you can replace wireless card in the laptop with newer dual band one like Intel 6200 which is ~10,00 on eBay. Some old card does not do WPA2.

 

[mikeg]

FW and IOS on the Iphone ....

I did not see if you checked that you had the latest firmware on the router. Do not use the autom. check for new fw but manually download the latest fw from Asus and install it for the routers web gui.
I remeber reading about oyhers having problems with Iphone connction who upgraded the IOS on their Iphones to the latest version.