Nintendo Wii connected to WRT1900AC on 2.4Ghz kills 5Ghz

[htismaqe]

Guys, any idea why a Nintendo Wii connected to the WRT1900AC on the 2.4Ghz band would kill my 5Ghz connection on my iMac?

I've been transferring disk images for a couple of days now without issue. Now all of the sudden I had one fail. I checked my wireless connection and the PHY rate had dropped from 162 to just 6.

The only thing that had happened was that my kids started up Amazon Instant Video on the family room Wii.

I had them shut it off, I stopped the transfer, and my connection immediately settled down. I had them turn it back on and my PHY again dropped from 162 to 6.

So as a test, I fired up Amazon Instant Video on both the Blu Ray player and the Wii in their bedroom and started streaming some TV shows. No issues.

Started my file transfer. Again no issues.

Turned the Wii in the family room on and bam - PHY drops to 6 and my transfer fails. Streaming video in the bedroom is completely uninterrupted.

 

[chadster766]

Guys, any idea why a Nintendo Wii connected to the WRT1900AC on the 2.4Ghz band would kill my 5Ghz connection on my iMac?

I've been transferring disk images for a couple of days now without issue. Now all of the sudden I had one fail. I checked my wireless connection and the PHY rate had dropped from 162 to just 6.

The only thing that had happened was that my kids started up Amazon Instant Video on the family room Wii.

I had them shut it off, I stopped the transfer, and my connection immediately settled down. I had them turn it back on and my PHY again dropped from 162 to 6.

So as a test, I fired up Amazon Instant Video on both the Blu Ray player and the Wii in their bedroom and started streaming some TV shows. No issues.

Started my file transfer. Again no issues.

Turned the Wii in the family room on and bam - PHY drops to 6 and my transfer fails. Streaming video in the bedroom is completely uninterrupted.

I'm guessing that the Wii is causing the 2.4ghz to switch to a different protocol like b or g. and when the Wii disconnects the protocol switches back to a/n.

What I do in these cases is keep the 2.4ghz for older devices and set the 5ghz to a/n/ac only modes for the new devices.

 

[htismaqe]

The 2.4Ghz band is set to G-only, fixed 20Mhz, channel 6. The 5Ghz band is set to N-only, fixed 40Mhz, channel 161.

Both Wii's are configured identically. One of them causes the issue, the other doesn't.

Of course, now I swapped the two Nintendo's and then swapped them back and I can't reproduce the issue...

 

[chadster766]

The 2.4Ghz band is set to G-only, fixed 20Mhz, channel 6. The 5Ghz band is set to N-only, fixed 40Mhz, channel 161.

Both Wii's are configured identically. One of them causes the issue, the other doesn't.

Of course, now I swapped the two Nintendo's and then swapped them back and I can't reproduce the issue...

That always makes it hard to figure what's going on doesn't it

 

[sfx2000]

The 2.4Ghz band is set to G-only, fixed 20Mhz, channel 6. The 5Ghz band is set to N-only, fixed 40Mhz, channel 161.

Both Wii's are configured identically. One of them causes the issue, the other doesn't.

Of course, now I swapped the two Nintendo's and then swapped them back and I can't reproduce the issue...

For 2.4GHz - put it into B/G/N mode, 20Mhz channels - pick a good channel

For 5GHz - leave it in mixed mode, auto - my experience here is that this works well for mixed mode A/N/AC clients - Marvell has done a good job here on this item

If you're using media prioritization - try turning it off.

sfx

 

[htismaqe]

So your confirming its strictly related to 2.4ghz?

Yep.

And the strange thing is, the issue with the Wii yesterday also at least started with the 2.4Ghz radio.

It's an original Wii (not a Wii U) so it's 2.4Ghz, 802.11g only. And I mean, as soon as they powered it on, my file transfer took a dump.

I wonder it it's just a faulty radio. The LEDs weren't lighting correctly when I first set this thing up. They normalized after a couple of reboots.

Since it's so new, I might just try exchanging it at BB.

 

[chadster766]

I've advised Linksys engineering of this issue.

 

[htismaqe]

Awesome, thanks!

I've got no other signs of instability right now. I'm 105GB into a 145GB image transfer and it's flying along at about 150Mbps.

 

[htismaqe]

OK, post-weirdness - first transfer of 145GB image completed without issue and ran consistently at 150Mbps the whole time. No 5Ghz signal issues at all.

I've now run about 2TBs of backups through this thing and only had one fail (due to the Wii weirdness). The only reboots I had likely would not have happened had I not changed the 2.4Ghz settings.

I don't think this is a load issue at all. We have between 6 and 10 clients connected at any time. 39 total devices. Streaming video in at least 2 rooms, PCs using Facebook, Minecraft, and Flash games. Plus I'm working on an RFP for work on a laptop connected to the guest network and transferring images on my Mac.

I'm still considering resetting it to defaults but I don't feel an urgent need to do anything right now other than let it bake.

 

[sfx2000]

Hmmm... wonder if it is browning out due to load...

Marvell's tend to pull down a bit more power, mainly due to higher chip count - if I recall, the PS pretty beefy though - the sample I have is 12VDC@4A, which should be more than enough...

sfx

 

[htismaqe]

I don't think it's load-related.

I was loading it this afternoon - in addition to the file transfer, I had my work PC connected, there were 2 video streams running, and 2 other people in the house were on their PCs doing Facebook and stuff.

Very, very similar to yesterday except that the video streams were running on a PS3 and a Sony BR player today. Yesterday they were in the family room and were going to stream from a Wii.

The instant they turned on the Wii, things went south. As soon as they shut it off, everything normalized. And that's the only time it happened. I turned those Wii's on and off a dozen times last night and it never happened again. At one point, I had Amazon Instant Video going on 2 different Blu Ray players, 2 different Wii's, AND on my PS3 and never could get the 5Ghz radio to drop out again.

As for the router rebooting that happened to day, I'm 100% convinced it was related to changing the 2.4Ghz settings. Tomorrow I will be home by myself for a couple of hours. I'm going to try to reproduce the problem.

 

[thiggins]

Are any of your other devices G only?

 

[htismaqe]

One or two of the Blu Ray players might be. You know, I don't really know for sure. The 2 Wii's are by far the oldest devices on the network.

I do know that almost all of the devices on my network are 2.4Ghz-only. Only my iMac, my work laptop (Intel 6200AGN chipset), and 2 Linksys AE1000 USB adapters are 5Ghz capable.

Is there something I should be looking for specifically?

 

[thiggins]

One or two of the Blu Ray players might be. You know, I don't really know for sure. The 2 Wii's are by far the oldest devices on the network.

I do know that almost all of the devices on my network are 2.4Ghz-only. Only my iMac, my work laptop (Intel 6200AGN chipset), and 2 Linksys AE1000 USB adapters are 5Ghz capable.

Is there something I should be looking for specifically?

It's unlikely any new devices like Blu-ray players are 802.11g. Probably N.

I think you are running into an incompatibility between the WRT's wireless mode settings and the slower operation of 11g. It could be that the WRT is not lengthening its sense window to accommodate 11g's slower response. So the Wii's signal is being seen as noise and causing lots of retransmissions.

You may already have done this, but the WRT Channel Width should be set to 20 MHz mode and Network mode changed from default Mixed to Wireless B/G/N only. The only thing you are giving up with that setting is 600 Mbps link rate in 2.4 GHz. But with no adapters that support it, you're fine.

 

[htismaqe]

It's unlikely any new devices like Blu-ray players are 802.11g. Probably N.

I think you are running into an incompatibility between the WRT's wireless mode settings and the slower operation of 11g. It could be that the WRT is not lengthening its sense window to accommodate 11g's slower response. So the Wii's signal is being seen as noise and causing lots of retransmissions.

You may already have done this, but the WRT Channel Width should be set to 20 MHz mode and Network mode changed from default Mixed to Wireless B/G/N only. The only thing you are giving up with that setting is 600 Mbps link rate in 2.4 GHz. But with no adapters that support it, you're fine.

I already have the Channel Width fixed at 20Mhz. With the Network Mode set to G-only, all of the Blu Ray devices as well as all PCs (all of them are most likely N too) work fine. In fact, outside of this one incident, both Wii's appear to be fine too.

What is the byproduct of changing to B/G/N? I'm assuming the only thing would be that N clients would be able to achieve a maximum link rate of 72Mbps vs. 54Mbps, right?

I'm used to Netgear firmware where you just set the maximum link rate (up to [X]Mpbs). I always used the "up to 54Mbps" setting to prevent N from kicking in on the 2.4Ghz band. I guess with this router, I can do that with the channel width setting.

 

[thiggins]

Channel width should only apply to N and AC.

G only should limit link rates to 54 Mbps for all 2.4 GHz devices. If you are getting link rates any higher than that, the router isn't operating properly or its mode definitions are very, uh, creative.

Changing to B/G/N will let devices link at N rates. In 20 MHz mode, 1x1 devices would be 65 or 72, 2x2 would be 130 or 144 and 3x3 would be 216 or so.

 

[htismaqe]

I'm haven't noticed any devices getting link rates above 54Mbps, so G-only appears to be working as desired in that respect. I have never allowed devices connected directly to my main router to connect at the higher N rates (130Mbps and above). I have external APs for those kinds of connections.

However, I'm guessing though that the WRT1900AC can handle quite a bit more simultaneous throughput vs. my old WNDR3700. Is my policy outdated now that I have a more powerful router?

I guess the other idea for the Wii issue - could I possibly achieve better compatibility by using B/G mode as opposed to G-only?

 

[thiggins]

I'm haven't noticed any devices getting link rates above 54Mbps, so G-only appears to be working as desired in that respect. I have never allowed devices connected directly to my main router to connect at the higher N rates (130Mbps and above). I have external APs for those kinds of connections.

However, I'm guessing though that the WRT1900AC can handle quite a bit more simultaneous throughput vs. my old WNDR3700. Is my policy outdated now that I have a more powerful router?

Using additional APs to handle a lot of wireless devices is good practice, since it gives you more bandwidth to work with, assuming each AP is on a different channel.

I guess the other idea for the Wii issue - could I possibly achieve better compatibility by using B/G mode as opposed to G-only?

Yep, I'd try that. The Wii could be using some old, funky driver that doesn't properly implement G protection mechanisms.

 

[sm00thpapa]

I'm trying slowly to get rid of all G devices. But having a Wii and PS3 that still works it will be tough. Finally got 3 LG G2's in the house which are my first AC devices. Would be nice to have all N and AC devices and not having to worry about old out dated G devices.

 

[htismaqe]

I'm trying slowly to get rid of all G devices. But having a Wii and PS3 that still works it will be tough. Finally got 3 LG G2's in the house which are my first AC devices. Would be nice to have all N and AC devices and not having to worry about old out dated G devices.

Yeah, we have 2 Wii's and they get used quite a bit since the kids not only play games on them but they are also used for Amazon Instant Video/Netflix.

There's no real clean, inexpensive way to replace that functionality unfortunately.