Sporadic Signal Strength - RT-AC66U

[albe52]

My old Trendnet router finally gave up the ghost after years of faultless service and would not connect to the internet anymore. I replaced it with this Asus router a few weeks ago. Now I'm finding the signal strength fluctuates every several minutes from 5-4 bars and back - constantly, regardless of how close I am to the router with my laptops. Using Wireless Netview this shows as 4 bars at 79% and 5 bars at 99%. As I said it changes every 2-3 minutes and never varies from those 2 percentages and does affect some web pages when loading. In the router I experimented with various channel settings, channel bandwidth, wireless mode settings, etc, etc, to no avail. My old Trendnet never displayed this type of sporadic activity and was always at 5 bars so I'm considering returning the Asus but thought I'd run it past the forum first for ideas and/or suggestions. Router and wireless nics have most recent firmware and drivers.

Win7
Cisco DPC 3008 Modem

 

[joegreat]

Now I'm finding the signal strength fluctuates every several minutes from 5-4 bars and back - constantly, regardless of how close I am to the router with my laptops. Using Wireless Netview this shows as 4 bars at 79% and 5 bars at 99%. As I said it changes every 2-3 minutes and never varies from those 2 percentages and does affect some web pages when loading.

My suggestions:
- Do a factory reset and start fresh!
- Use the least busy wireless channel
- Use only 20 MHz bandwidth
- Use the latest firmware
- Disable beamforming on Wireless/professional page

With this suggestions you should have a stable and rock solid wireless network!

 

[albe52]

My suggestions:
- Do a factory reset and start fresh!
- Use the least busy wireless channel
- Use only 20 MHz bandwidth
- Use the latest firmware
- Disable beamforming on Wireless/professional page

With this suggestions you should have a stable and rock solid wireless network!

Thanks joegreat. I've already done everything but the factory reset (was hoping to avoid) but will do so. I haven't the option "beamforming".

 

[Puppa]

Without the factory reset, other changes may not be relevant. Please resist the temptation to load a previously-saved settings file. Make a new configuration manually.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

[joegreat]

Make a new configuration manually.

Or use this handy tool: User NVRAM Save/Restore Utility.

Wireless problems are often related to the hidden settings in the NVRAM - only a factory reset can "repair" them.
On top remove the profiles on the client side (forget or delete the wireless settings) and connect fresh to the router for all clients.

With kind regards
Joe

 

[albe52]

First off I want to thank each of you for taking the time to assist me here. It means a lot. Although I have not performed a factory reset as yet, I've been doing some testing using 2 laptops.
After a rebooting the Dell this morning which sits on my office desk within 2' of the router is showing 100% signal 100% average for both 2.4&5gh on my network. The Toshiba that has been exhibiting the signal issues (indicated in my original post) normally resides in the family room and it is approx. 12' from the router with one wall and an open door between rooms. Suspecting a possible issue with the Toshiba wireless card (driver updated yesterday) I moved it into the office and on the same desk as the Dell. This did not improve my signal problems. Same low end 79% , then up to 84 and seldom 91, then down to 79 again as compared to 79 & 99 teetering yesterday. I disconnected the Toshiba from the router and Wireless Netview then showed my network broadcasting at 99% solid which caused me further suspicion of the Toshiba nic so I shut off the Toshiba's on-board wireless hardware completely and using an old shelved 802.11 b/g/n Long Range USB Adapter I re-connected to the router. Now for the last 30 minutes the USB Adaptor GUI utility shows me at 100% signal consistently as does Wireless Netview. I will add that the Dell's nic is capable of 2.4 and 5 while the newer Toshiba's card is only 2.4. I'm not certain how big a deal it is to swap out for a newer card in the Toshiba but I can for the meantime use the USB device. My next move will be to re-install the wireless card in the Toshiba and see what happens.
Any thoughts?

 

[albe52]

First off I want to thank each of you for taking the time to assist me here. It means a lot. Although I have not performed a factory reset as yet, I've been doing some testing using 2 laptops.
After a rebooting the Dell this morning which sits on my office desk within 2' of the router is showing 100% signal 100% average for both 2.4&5gh on my network. The Toshiba that has been exhibiting the signal issues (indicated in my original post) normally resides in the family room and it is approx. 12' from the router with one wall and an open door between rooms. Suspecting a possible issue with the Toshiba wireless card (driver updated yesterday) I moved it into the office and on the same desk as the Dell. This did not improve my signal problems. Same low end 79% , then up to 84 and seldom 91, then down to 79 again as compared to 79 & 99 teetering yesterday. I disconnected the Toshiba from the router and Wireless Netview then showed my network broadcasting at 99% solid which caused me further suspicion of the Toshiba nic so I shut off the Toshiba's on-board wireless hardware completely and using an old shelved 802.11 b/g/n Long Range USB Adapter I re-connected to the router. Now for the last 30 minutes the USB Adaptor GUI utility shows me at 100% signal consistently as does Wireless Netview. I will add that the Dell's nic is capable of 2.4 and 5 while the newer Toshiba's card is only 2.4. I'm not certain how big a deal it is to swap out for a newer card in the Toshiba but I can for the meantime use the USB device. My next move will be to re-install the wireless card in the Toshiba and see what happens.
Any thoughts?

Latest update after further tweaking. I re-installed the wireless card in the Toshiba and moved it back into the other room away from the router. I removed the USB Wifi adaptor and using the on-board Wifi I connected to my router and still experienced the same low signal issues. I went into the wifi card properties for one more look at the config and made sure it was still at 20mHz and this time I disabled wirelessN. I've been sitting at 5 bars and a solid 99% signal for an hour now since disabling wirelessN. [[[shrug]]] Time will tell.. Oh yeah, my D/L speed took a major dump when I turned off wirelessN.