Opinions needed

[rahlquist]

Ok, I need 2nd, 3rd, and 4th opinions. Been fighting issues too long and I am too close to the situation.

We moved into our current home in 2009. Over the course of our residence here we have had some Wifi issues that just seem to not make sense. I have tried virtually everything and have gotten things working better, with better equipment but I still have issues. We currently have Charter for a provider. I currently am running only one wifi router but in the past I have run 2. The reason being is my wifes machine.

For some reason she has always (through 2 laptops) had wifi issues. I have very rare drops. In her laptops we have tried internal minipci nics from Realtek, Atheros, Intel etc, external usb dongles from ASUS and a few others.

The previous router I had was a Linksys E3000. The routers have always been in my office in the left rear basement (looking at the house from the street). My wifes office is on the next floor in the right front of the house, so its a diagonal line through the house. This line to the best of my imagining cuts through 4-5 walls and the hardwood floor. Also there is a good bit of heavy furniture on 2 walls that may curtail the signal some too. That said I routinely get wifi signals in that room in the -70 to -60 db range. She still gets drops, lots of them, and then has problems reconnecting. For a while I had an ASUS RT-N12(B) in there hooked to the bridged DECA connection. She still had drops but things like the EyeFi card she uses in her camera in there worked better than they do now.

Her previous laptop was running windows 7, the new none was Widnows 8 till last night. Now its on 8.1. Her office probably needs the wifi more than the rest of the house for her work. Again until recently she was only using wifi in there, due to the issues I have her plugged into another bridged connection in there to stop her drops but she doesnt like being tied to a wire. I have re-installed windows, drivers, tried other cards nothing seems to eliminate it.

Here is my question. What would you do at this point?

I have considered moving the R7000 up there but that would take running two cat5e/6 drops from my basement office to hers. One to connect the R7000 to the modem, the other to connect it to my primary etherswitch. I can do it but boy howdy would I like to avoid it. On the flip side there are no wifi devices in the basement other than the occasional smart phone or tablet moving through. The majority of the wifi action in our home is definitely upstairs.

As for external interference, our neighbourhood is not that wifi crowded really.
http://patentlystupid.com/sw/inssid.png
The top two are mine. AREN2109 and AREN2109_5 the only other 3 possible sources of large amounts of interference are; a) the electric meter is on the exterior wall directly below her office and is the wireless type that phones home. b) we live within 300 feet of one of the busiest interstates in the south, no telling what kind of RFI inducing crap drives by. c) the local WARRS system ( https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=5078 ) one of their towers is about one mile away and I have line of sight to the top of it, thought I have no idea if this could cause an issue.

I am including a network diagram. The only thing not pictured is the last DirecTV bridge with the wifes laptop currently connected. http://patentlystupid.com/sw/network.jpg

 

[jlake]

She gets drops on 2.4 ghz? 5ghz? Both?

Try basic troubleshooting steps.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12453

I seem to have best results on channel 149 for 5ghz.

 

[rahlquist]

She gets drops on 2.4 ghz? 5ghz? Both?

Try basic troubleshooting steps.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12453

I seem to have best results on channel 149 for 5ghz.

She is on 2.4. Her HP Envy laptop has a very short bios white-list of wifi cards, anything off that list and it will not boot at all. I have dug extensively for a hacked bios that would open this up but no luck. I have tried a few Intel cards that weren't on the list and true to form it just wont boot.

I have performed all the steps on your list multiple times and with multiple routers and both stock firmware and DD-WRT. With each new wifi card comes a careful removal of wifi networks, followed by drivers and the hardware. I even crawl the registry to see if anything obvious gets left there. All your tips are a good starting point though.

 

[jlake]

If you want to try something quick and easy.......try a wireless powerline adapter kit. Just update the firmware on both pieces of the kit and plug them in.

I've used the kit below and works fine. No drops. Streams HD video no problem.

Every homes wiring is different, so if it doesn't work, send it back and get your money back.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087O6AQE/?tag=snbforums-20

Or if you want to save a few dollars....they have a regular powerline adapter kit. You would just need to put the little asus n12 in to AP mode and plug it in to the bridged Ethernet port.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006JG5S6K/?tag=snbforums-20

The only reason I'm suggesting these is because they are the only ones I've ever used. I'm sure you might be able to find better ones or cheaper ones.

 

[abailey]

If I were you I would put a WAP in the office with here, wired back to your router. I would also strongly suggest you move her to 5ghz (meaning you need a 5ghz WAP and card for her laptop).

 

[sfx2000]

WiFi is like real-estate, it's all about location

Try moving the AP first... down in the basement kitty-corner from the wife's workstation - you're punching thru a lot of walls.

If you still have the E3000, convert it into an AP only (disable DHCP, etc - good article on this site over in the how-to's) and put it upstairs.

best of luck.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
IMO, problem is the location of your router. From my experience routers work better when they are located central for the premise, higher up. We live in a 2 story fully developed house(~2600 sq. ft. not counting basement) One router to cover every thing from basement to top floor loft where router is. If I move router to basement, it is unable to cover the whole house. On every level we have devices on WiFi. No complaints from any one using their device doing their work. If it is absolutely impossible to relocate router to ideal spot, AP, repeater, power line adapter, whatever... you have to draw from them to solve the problem for good Don't blame the
router(s).

 

[rahlquist]

Thank you everyone. I have taken two steps for now. I drug out my ASUS RT-N12(B1) updated to the latest ASUS firmware, which is just god awful(had taken DD-WRT off it to sell it at a garage sale to happen soon). Installed that in her office with it switched to AP mode. It is wired to the main router in the basement over the DECA bridge. It is working fine and with a 10 minute connection I was able to run an iperf speed test to 28Mbps which should be just fine for her needs.

Secondly I ordered an Atheros AR9462 wifi card. While that specific Atheros is not listed as a replacement for her laptop I have high hopes it will sneak by. The model is covered by the driver that HP provides for the Atheros that is on the compatibility list and is the only thing close to 5ghz support it looks like for the internal form factor for this laptop. Once this is in place I will do more testing to see if we can eliminate the AP in her office.

 

[rahlquist]

Wifi card booted but did not function in her laptop (but worked in another just fine after). So I have to assume interference from the Bios whitelist. Intel card I tried before (2300) did the same thing. Laptop would boot, windows identified the card, drivers went in but no functionality.

We will just see where wifi takes us with the AP in her office I guess.