Wireless router degradation

[Steve Last]

I have a Belkin Wireless G+ router which sits

several rooms

away from where we often use our laptops. It has worked quite

satisfactorily

for the last couple of years but we are now finding the signal strength

severely

diminished to the point where it is almost unusable. Do these things

degrade

with time? Is there any benefit in re-installing it from scratch - I'm

reluctant to tinker unnecessarily in case I lose the whole thing! ?

ps sorry I can't seem to get rid of all that formatting instruction, it isn't there when I try to edit!!

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[Pierre ZFP]

It should never degrade like that.  I suggest having a look at the router power supply.  Is it running hot?  Have you a meter so you can check the output voltage?

What can happen is that the supply runs hot (Has something changed? poor ventilation?) so the voltage drops and with it the poor router's ability to perform.

Check also if the router is running hot, ditto ventilation check.

Try unplugging all and leaving for a couple of hours to cool then try again.

If no luck then come back as there are other things to check but do the easy stuff first.

[Steve Last]

many thanks, will try unplugging and cooling so taking the rest of the afternoon off the web!

Steve

[AnOther]

Sorry to disagree Pierre, and I'm not saying it's impossible, but I doubt an overheated supply would be the problem in this case but worth a try all the same.

For my money it's more likely to be interference so what else have you got in the house running in the same frequency band, nominally 2.4gHz, or, more to the point what have you recently added !

Many cordless phones for instance operate thereabouts and even moving one from one spot to another could have a massive effect. Have you moved the router itself ? You say 'several rooms' and from my experience under those sort of circumstances even an the odd cm can make the difference between working and not.

To help you visualise this I have a TV sender in the lounge, (operating on 2.4gHz), the receiver for which is at the extreme opposite end of the house, say 20m away through various doors & walls of course, and the positioning of that is hyper critical, a cm or so either way makes the difference between perfect and unwatchable.

Another thing, those horrible low wattage fluorescent lamps can kick out broadband noise over a wide spectrum so have you fitted or replaced any of those ?

It's a process of elimination  to prove or disprove.

[Pierre ZFP]

Good suggestions ErnieY

I suggested checking the power supply as firstly its easy to do and secondly this was exactly the problem a friend had last year.  In this case it was easily identified as they had bought new long curtains which kept the router and power supply nicely insulated and very hot.  Put them on an extension lead with air able to circulate and Bob's your Uncle.

Of course, now I think about it, it could just have been moving the location of the router a little bit that did the trick as you suggest [:$]

[Steve Last]

Thanks chaps....  unfortunately none of these seems to have done it, nothing has vchanged re positions of equipment or anything esle and there's no heat problem. One solution which has just occurred to me is to change the entry point to the house for the FT line. We can then relocate and update various bits of kit better for use throughout the house. It will actually shorten a number of extension cable runs and enable us to get cordless phones working in a number of other rooms too. Does anyone know how much FT charge for moving a line like that, before I start playing about with it myself?? Though I imagine DIY is probably illegal or contrary to FT's terms and conditions as well!

Steve

[AnOther]

OK, a few other suggestions:

Have you tried changing the radio channel ?

In the setup somewhere there will be an option to change this, normally it's either 6 or 11.

Some routers also have control of the power level, either in steps or absolute, so have a look there too to see if it is set to max.

If you have security turned on then try turning it off.

Otherwise I'm stumped then because unless the wireless side of the router has gone faulty, and usually that means working or not, then there is no obvious way to see how the signal could or would deteriorate.

Don't know about legality or your specific layout but I certainly think extending the incoming line pair to a more advantageous point could be a very good solution and well within even modest DIY skills.

Which router is it BTW ?

PS: What is all the garbage at the top of your original post. Are you using a MAC possibly. It's not there on your susequent posts.

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[AnOther]

A final thought:

Has your laptop suffered a hard knock recently. I'm thinking that it's possible that the antenna connector on the internal WiFi card could have become dislodged.

Frequently there is a small removable flap on the underside covering the card so you could actually take it off and have a peek.

You didn't say whether this was a sudden or gradual deterioration.

[Steve Last]

Thanks ErnieY

Radio channel I will see if I can fimd out how to do that! Similarly power level. The router is a Belkin G+, no other model ident that I can see.

No physical problem with the laptops, both the same and ond is almost brand new.

Am just going to have a look at where the line comes into the house - where I want it it would be quite a bit shorter too.

The garbage at the top of my original post seems to be  because I wrote the original text on MS Word (because I'd lost the connection to hte forum!) and copy/pasted it into the message box here later. On posting it the garbage appeared. However when I reopened the message to edit it out it's not visible so can't be removed! 

Cheers

Steve

[AnOther]

OK, whilst you're in the router wireless setup make sure it is set appropriately for your laptop, probably either G or N or possibly G+N

Thought that's what the gargage was, use notepad next time [;-)]

[Clair]

[quote user="ErnieY"]Thought that's what the gargage was, use notepad next time [;-)][/quote]

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[Steve Last]

Thanks everyone, the lateral approach has paid off......     phone socket disconnected, cable pulled through wall, attached outside to wall nearer living room, hole made in window frame, socket re-attached, all plugged in, full signal strength where needed   in living room!  Now just have to sort out rats nest of cables...........     Incidentally phone connection is very simple for anyone interested, although there appear to be 8 wires of different colours connected to the socket, the only ones actually connected (in mine anyway!) are grey top left and white immediately below.

Bonne soiree a tous....

Steve

[AnOther]

Great, a good afternoons work methinks, now about the 'fee' for not shopping you to FT..................[6]

[Steve Last]

How would a bottle of good Cote du Rhone Village ****  (won't say which until you want to come and collect it!!) do??

[Pierre ZFP]

Nice one, it's always good to get things working again!

[AnOther]

[quote user="Slast"]How would a bottle of good Cote du Rhone Village ****  (won't say which until you want to come and collect it!!) do?? [/quote]One of my favourites, how did you know [:D]

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Slast"]Thanks everyone, the lateral approach has paid off......     phone socket disconnected, cable pulled through wall, attached outside to wall nearer living room, hole made in window frame, socket re-attached, all plugged in, full signal strength where needed   in living room!  Now just have to sort out rats nest of cables...........     Incidentally phone connection is very simple for anyone interested, although there appear to be 8 wires of different colours connected to the socket, the only ones actually connected (in mine anyway!) are grey top left and white immediately below.
Bonne soiree a tous....
Steve
[/quote]

There are only 8 connection strips on a french telecom telephone connection plug so it would be strange if there were more than 8 wires. Your discovery that you have worked out that only two are required means that you have cracked the esoteric secrets of the POTS system. Hearty congratulations![:D]

[Steve Last]

 OK, so I now have good phone and internet in the living room [:D]  but.....   now the router can't be seen in my office [:(]

so I am wondering whether I should get a new router anyway.  Also wondering about whether the system which runs data around a house using the mains wiring would be worthwhile.  However even if it does I am doubtful if it would work with our mains which is 3 phase?

Steve

[Pierre ZFP]

As I understand it, the Network over mains on 3 phase would work only if on the same circuit.  ie your living room and office are on the same phase.

Whilst I'm not knocking Belkin routers I am told by my computer geek son that they have an annoying habit of only working well with other Belkin kit.

Personally I use a Linksys router (made by Cisco) which has been excellent, also in the UK I have a Logitec modem/router which also has been faultless.  Both of these have good range both in output signal strength and receiving sensitivity

[AnOther]

Perhaps something like THIS would fit the bill better.

[Steve Last]

Thanks Pierre, that's what I had thought. Unfortunately we don't have for example all the power sockets in a single room on the same phase, and it's almost impossible to find which is which as the banks of cbs are not consistently the same pahse (and aren't labelled of course! )    So I think we'll abandon that fidea and look at ErneyY's booster suggestion.  One other question though, what is the best direction for strength of those little antennas on a router - I had always assumed that they were radial and at 90 deg to the axis line of the antenna, i.e. if it's pointing straight up the signal is going equally in a horizontal "disc".  Is it worth attampting to align the antenna with where I want to receive?

Steve

[Owens88]

re: aligning antennae

I suspect that is trial and error (you can download a program called netstumbler which helps you assess signal characteristics ).

 

If you get an authoritaitive answer I would love to read it. Good luck.

 

John

[AnOther]

Theoretically and in clear space the radiation pattern from the typical antenna fitted to a router when standing vertically will be omni directional in the vertical plane - think of looking down on it from above and seeing a donut with the antenna at the center - but even that in practice will be look more like this:

[img]http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/98/07/9807d54c.gif[/img]

That's the theory, in the real world it will look almost nothing like this at the signal will be bouncing off all manner of things, walls, nearby furniture, even the router itself, so you would be better to regards it as virtually random but tending toward the vertical, possibly !

You can maybe now appreciate why the tiniest movement of the antenna or the router can have a profound effect.

One point, what flavour of WiFi has your laptop got. If its 'N' or 'Draft N' then you may benefit significantly from buying a matching router. In the very simpest of terms these employ multiple antennas, usually 3, which means that although you do not necessarily get more actual power because of the multiple antennas you get far more reflections so if those emanating from one antenna do not illuminate a particular spot those from another may do. It's called space diversity but you don't need to know that [geek]

[Steve Last]

Thanks for the excellent explanation!  

<what flavour of WiFi has your laptop got. If its 'N' or 'Draft N' then

you may benefit significantly from buying a matching router.>    what the spec in the manual says is "802.11 ABG, AGN and BG"  - which means nothing to me!!

Cheers,

Steve

[AnOther]

They don't make it easy do they and even I find those groupings a little confusing but the fact that 'N' appears means that it is supported so an 'N' router would likely be of benefit to you. One thing to bear in mind is that because 'N' is still unratified as a standard you will frequently find that to get the very best out of it all hardware needs to be from the same manufacturer. Obviously you have little choice of what's fitted in the laptop, and indeed the odds are that it's of an entirely different make to any router you might buy, even so an 'N' router should still be capable of giving better performance than what you have.

To really maximise the performance you could also buy a matching USB or PCMCIA adapter.

There is a description of the various 'flavours' of WiFi HERE if you're interested.