Internet dies for ~30 seconds several times a day

Odahh · November 5, 2023

Heya!

My friend has had this issue now for about a month, and nothing we try has been able to fix the problem. It usually happens when we just sit in discord. Randomly, their voice cuts out completely for a while, but they can still hear my voice and everything that I say. It's not just that discords servers are weird since it affects them sending text messages as well as disconnecting them from Steam. We've tried restarting routers, factory resetting routers, trying both Ethernet and WiFi and nothing manages to fix the problem. They can still ping the routers and the routers can ping back. There are several other PC's on the connection, yet only one other is experiencing this issue. It's not an issue with bandwidth limiting as the issue is still prevalent when the other PC's are shut down. The motherboard is slightly over a year old so I don't think it'd be an issue with a port, and it shouldn't be since there's another PC with the same issue.

I checked if it was a firewall doing something weird, but no. The only thing I could think of now since they have 2 routers with the same IP is an IP Conflict or something, but it feels as if that should affect the entire network and not just 2/17 devices. We're starting to give up hope... Any and all tips are welcome.

Eigenvektor · November 5, 2023

2 hours ago, Odahh said:

The only thing I could think of now since they have 2 routers with the same IP is an IP Conflict or something…

Two devices with the same IP is definitely something you want to resolve though. Who knows what kind of effects that might have. If you've resolved the issue and it still happens, maybe check the router's logs for any random reboots or similar.

circeseye · November 5, 2023

sounds like your routers are conflicting. they shouldnt have the same ip make the secondary one 1 number different will fix it, and also make sure each routers wifi channels are different if one is channel 15 make the other like channel 6 as an example they should be at least 5 channels separate. do this for both the 2.4 and 5ghz. 2 routers running wifi channels to close together can cause drops

Falcon1986 · November 5, 2023

10 hours ago, Odahh said:

The only thing I could think of now since they have 2 routers with the same IP is an IP Conflict or something, but it feels as if that should affect the entire network and not just 2/17 devices.

This is not good practice. You're asking for network conflicts. I think this is your major problem.

6 hours ago, circeseye said:

sounds like your routers are conflicting. they shouldnt have the same ip make the secondary one 1 number different will fix it, and also make sure each routers wifi channels are different if one is channel 15 make the other like channel 6 as an example they should be at least 5 channels separate. do this for both the 2.4 and 5ghz. 2 routers running wifi channels to close together can cause drops

It's more than that.

Firstly, the router directly connected to the modem or gateway should be designated the primary. The additional router should have it's DHCP server disabled so that the primary is the only functional router. The easiest way to do this is to convert the additional router to AP mode. You don't need to mess with IPs if you choose this route.

Secondly, the channel separation depends on the channel width being used. No one should ever use beyond 20MHz on 2.4GHz unless if you're living in a very rural area where there's absolutely no other 2.4GHz being broadcast. Channels 1, 6 and 11 are non-overlapping on 2.4GHz only if you have 20MHz channel widths.

As for channel 15, I've never heard of it on standard WiFi. Maybe on proprietary wireless, like ZigBee. Only Japan is authorized to use up to channel 14 on standard WiFi, I believe.

The 5GHz band has more wiggle room, but it doesn't mean that you can choose whichever channel you want. Channel widths of 80 to 160MHz will overlap more easily with other wireless broadcasts. Always run a wireless survey to assess the spectrum you're interested in before assigning your broadcast channel. And while running fat channel widths opens up for more bandwidth, range decreases and you probably don't need WLAN speeds of 1.2Gbps if you have sub-gigabit WAN speeds anyway.

kirashi · November 12, 2023

On 11/4/2023 at 8:44 PM, Odahh said:

Heya!

My friend has had this issue now for about a month, and nothing we try has been able to fix the problem. It usually happens when we just sit in discord. Randomly, their voice cuts out completely for a while, but they can still hear my voice and everything that I say. It's not just that discords servers are weird since it affects them sending text messages as well as disconnecting them from Steam. We've tried restarting routers, factory resetting routers, trying both Ethernet and WiFi and nothing manages to fix the problem. They can still ping the routers and the routers can ping back. There are several other PC's on the connection, yet only one other is experiencing this issue. It's not an issue with bandwidth limiting as the issue is still prevalent when the other PC's are shut down. The motherboard is slightly over a year old so I don't think it'd be an issue with a port, and it shouldn't be since there's another PC with the same issue.

I checked if it was a firewall doing something weird, but no. The only thing I could think of now since they have 2 routers with the same IP is an IP Conflict or something, but it feels as if that should affect the entire network and not just 2/17 devices. We're starting to give up hope... Any and all tips are welcome.

Bypass all networking devices except for one of the two problem PCs by connecting one of those PCs directly to the Internet Modem. Test the connection with things connected this way for a period of time to see if the issue disappears. Slowly add network devices back to the network topology until the problem recurs. Bingo bango, you've found the culprit.