Extremely Inconsistent Wifi

[Mashkal]

So I recently upgraded my router from a Linksys WRT54GL to a Linksys EA6300, and I have been having severe issues since. This is in an apartment building with about 20 other networks in range. Before the upgrade, everything was fine, except for inconsistent coverage of the other side of the apartment. This seems normal, considering the range of the router and the amount of interference from other networks. I have some 2.4 GHz devices and one dual band device, so I thought an upgrade would help extend the range, especially considering there is no interference on the 5 GHz band.

 

At first, I simply replaced the old router with the new one, and that worked fine for a while. Then I started noticing some connection issues such a the connection dropping after extended use. This got worse, and one of the 2.4 GHz devices stopped being able to connect to the network. The only immediate solution I could think of was to have both routers running simultaneously. This also worked for a while, with that device being able to connect to the old network.

 

Long story short, the issues got progressively worse, with even the old router (which was rock-solid for about 10 years) sometimes having issues.

 

At this point the whole setup is INCREDIBLY inconsistent. Sometimes, both networks are fine. Sometimes, I need to change which router is the primary one (connected to the modem) to get it to work. Sometimes, the 5 GHz band works on the new router, while the 2.4 GHz bands on both of them don't work. Sometimes, the DNS lookup fails on both routers ("Ping request could not find host google.com. Please check the name and try again.") Sometimes, the "destination net is unreachable". Sometimes, the ping request times out. Sometimes, the latency to the router is multiple seconds. Sometimes, even an Ethernet connection to the router doesn't work. Sometimes, restarting the router and/or the client device fixes the problem, but sometimes it doesn't.

 

The configuration that currently works is with the new router being the primary, and the secondary router plugged in through one of the client (1,2,3,4) ports, not the internet port. This fixed it the last time it wasn't working; I just keep changing the configuration and restarting everything until it works.

 

I don't know what to do at this point. I don't really want to buy an expensive new router, but if this keeps up, I might have to. I have tried changing the channel that the routers broadcast on (for the 2.4 GHz band). Is there ANYTHING that I can change without getting new hardware that might fix the issue? Any help would be appreciated.

 

I know that keeping an exact log would help, but I'm not the only one using this network, and I'm not here all the time so the log wouldn't be 100% accurate.

 

A tentative guess at what the issue may be is that the old router's DNS lookup somehow isn't working (I don't know how exactly, I'm not very experienced with networking) and that the new router is overheating. This just might be random enough to produce the variety of results that I'm getting.

[AresKrieger]

I'll give the same advice I always give for bad wifi if you can use ethernet use ethernet over wifi

[techguru]

 

So I recently upgraded my router from a Linksys WRT54GL to a Linksys EA6300, and I have been having severe issues since. This is in an apartment building with about 20 other networks in range. Before the upgrade, everything was fine, except for inconsistent coverage of the other side of the apartment. This seems normal, considering the range of the router and the amount of interference from other networks. I have some 2.4 GHz devices and one dual band device, so I thought an upgrade would help extend the range, especially considering there is no interference on the 5 GHz band.

 

At first, I simply replaced the old router with the new one, and that worked fine for a while. Then I started noticing some connection issues such a the connection dropping after extended use. This got worse, and one of the 2.4 GHz devices stopped being able to connect to the network. The only immediate solution I could think of was to have both routers running simultaneously. This also worked for a while, with that device being able to connect to the old network.

 

Long story short, the issues got progressively worse, with even the old router (which was rock-solid for about 10 years) sometimes having issues.

 

At this point the whole setup is INCREDIBLY inconsistent. Sometimes, both networks are fine. Sometimes, I need to change which router is the primary one (connected to the modem) to get it to work. Sometimes, the 5 GHz band works on the new router, while the 2.4 GHz bands on both of them don't work. Sometimes, the DNS lookup fails on both routers ("Ping request could not find host google.com. Please check the name and try again.") Sometimes, the "destination net is unreachable". Sometimes, the ping request times out. Sometimes, the latency to the router is multiple seconds. Sometimes, even an Ethernet connection to the router doesn't work. Sometimes, restarting the router and/or the client device fixes the problem, but sometimes it doesn't.

 

The configuration that currently works is with the new router being the primary, and the secondary router plugged in through one of the client (1,2,3,4) ports, not the internet port. This fixed it the last time it wasn't working; I just keep changing the configuration and restarting everything until it works.

 

I don't know what to do at this point. I don't really want to buy an expensive new router, but if this keeps up, I might have to. I have tried changing the channel that the routers broadcast on (for the 2.4 GHz band). Is there ANYTHING that I can change without getting new hardware that might fix the issue? Any help would be appreciated.

 

I know that keeping an exact log would help, but I'm not the only one using this network, and I'm not here all the time so the log wouldn't be 100% accurate.

 

A tentative guess at what the issue may be is that the old router's DNS lookup somehow isn't working (I don't know how exactly, I'm not very experienced with networking) and that the new router is overheating. This just might be random enough to produce the variety of results that I'm getting.

 

first..I would return that router..and get a asus ac one

second..

you really should try to avoid using wireless if you can

and switch to powerline adapters