Home WiFi problems

Both my Samsung Galaxy Tab Nook tablet and my Droid phone have trouble staying connected in my house. My wife's IPhone and iPad do not. Is there something about Android based tech that causes WiFi reception or retention issues?

My laptop kicks out of contact about four times an hour lately. I blame the Russians.

I don't think it's necessarily Android as the OS that's causing these issues. I've seen the scenario you describe myself (iOS devices having more stable connections than Android devices and Windows phones having an entirely different opinion again) and the exact opposite also. Most often it seemed to be a Wifi access point that worked better with one or the other. How good is the Wifi signal in the places where do you encounter these issues?

I ended up fixing a lot of Wifi issues by buying a better Wifi access point and moving it into a more central location in the house, plus moving as many devices as possible to 5GHz band networks.

Also, depending on how close you are to your neighbouring houses, check if by any chance you're using conflicting channels as that can have a pretty massive impact on Wifi performance and connection stability. Some devices deal better with interference from another network than others.

A friend of mine recently had a problem with malware in the router causing connectivity issues.

In reply to BoxheadTim:

Live in the country. Closest neighbor is over 300 yards away, so no interference. I can be anywhere in the house and have this problem regardless of signal strength. My wife has no such problems.

Our WiFi router is not ours. It's from the phone company.

Interesting .... my iphone and wife's iphone have no issues with connectivity to our wireless network, but her (work issued) droid tablet does. Great signal in our house, but het tablet disconnects with regularity none the less .... so, looks like we are in the same spot as the OP.

einy wrote: Interesting .... my iphone and wife's iphone have no issues with connectivity to our wireless network, but her (work issued) droid tablet does. Great signal in our house, but het tablet disconnects with regularity none the less .... so, looks like we are in the same spot as the OP.

Exactly

Just about every iOS device has 2.4GHz and 5GHz support. If your access point does both, it might be part of the performance difference.

Troubleshooting something last night, I turned on the "Bluetooth coexistence" feature in my wireless access point. It fixed connectivity for my FireTV Stick in its new location. Turning off bluetooth on devices if you don't use it could also improve wireless performance.

Downloaded wifi analyzer. I'm on 2.4G apparently. Midlevel dBm (about -74). I'm watching the signal strength drop as time goes by slowly then recover. Is that normal? Phone is sitting on my lap. No interfering networks. Not moving. Using tablet to write.

vwcorvette wrote: In reply to BoxheadTim:...Our WiFi router is not ours. It's from the phone company.

I have found that the modem Wifi devices can be very cheap. They run out of slots after a lot of reconnects and the modem has to be rebooted. In my case that also killed the network for a minute and killed the DVR if it was recording.

I finally got a 3 antenna access point with dual SSIDs and have never been happier. I put it in middle basement. Just remember to disable wifi in the modem. I did have to change my static IP's but that is a problem most people won't have

Give the guest SSID password to guests, then they won't get to see into your network unless you want them too.

Had a similar problem with a couple of devices when I set up a new router a few months ago. Solved by assigning static IPs.

In reply to pjbgravely:

I finally got a 3 antenna access point with dual SSIDs and have never been happier. I put it in middle basement. Just remember to disable wifi in the modem. I did have to change my static IP's but that is a problem most people won't have

Please translate for computer network neophyte.

The easy button here is to buy a google OnHub. I bought one a couple months ago to replace some very old equipment that was giving me issues. I didn't even put it in a great place and I have WAY better coverage. Its a little weird that the configuration is done completely from your phone, but I love it. I got the Asus. https://on.google.com/hub/

If you want to save some coin and don't mind a slightly more complicated installation, you can get a very similar Asus AC1900 router through t-mobile http://www.t-mobile.com/accessories/t-mobile-wi-fi-cellspot-router.html You don't have to be a t-mo customer and its a really high end router.

Beyond that, look at placement in your house. Things like microwaves, furnaces and refrigerators do nothing good for your wifi. Consider moving your existing or the new access point somewhere that will be less affected.

You could also try a wireless repeater. I've had good luck with the Netgear repeaters with external antennae. On these, I've seen a lot of people not understand the instructions or the purpose. You want to plug it in halfway between your problem spot and the router. It really never needs to be plugged into a PC or the wired network.

I called our ISP when I was having similar issues, they tweaked something and it was fixed. No idea what they did, but it was a worthwhile call.

vwcorvette wrote: In reply to pjbgravely:

I finally got a 3 antenna access point with dual SSIDs and have never been happier. I put it in middle basement. Just remember to disable wifi in the modem. I did have to change my static IP's but that is a problem most people won't have

Please translate for computer network neophyte.

An access point is a wifi device, usually a router. SSID is the name of the wireless network. Most people leave them at default, that is why you used to see lots of netgears and linksys networks. Static IP is when you tell the device what IP address it can use. Most people use DHCP which lets the devices choose their own. With static IPs you have to make sure 2 devices don't have the same address and they won't get used by DHCP.

You can disable the WiFi in your (the phone company's) router and use one of the ethernet ports in the router to plug in your own WiFi access point.

It's slightly technical, but I figured it out, and I'm no geek. I can help if you'd like.

We have similar issues when streaming anything. Our phone company router is dual band 2.4/5.0 and I have assigned the kids xBoxes and their streaming media player (Roku Stick) all to 2.4. Our streaming media player (Amazon Fire Stick) and iPhones are on 5ghz. Our Samsung Blueray media player is hard wired.

Infrequent issues when everyone crashes the gateway