wireless Wireless issues.

[carlos9035]

Hi, 

 

I Have this strange Wireless problem at my house that I can't seem to figure out on my own.

 

I first bought a TP-Link N600(TL-WDR3500 v1) it started with my wife complaining about the videos in the tv would stop playing, and start turning blurry and eventually not playing at all, I rebooted the router and moved on. Once I got my Battle station set, I started playing wireless and then I noticed the problem as my latency would increase dramatically. So I started to look in to the issue, at first I did not find anything, and was in the exact same spot that I am now, so I just bought a new router, D-Link(DHP-1320), It was ok for the first few days and then back to square one, latency going up, video wouldn't load ect.. so I started looking at logs.

 

I noticed a few MAC Addresses requesting IP over and over and it sort of correlated with the time that the wireless started to slow down. This router did not tell me what devices were doing the requests, so I Tried the TP-Link again to see if those logs gave me more information and it turns out I found out that it was the Apple devices. After a few days of re-searching and about 3 hours wasted with Apple support to see if they could tell me why, those devices were doing that, I had no luck. I found out that low battery mode, to save energy, associates and de-associate with the wireless APs as the phone turns off and back on. Since I have some wireless knowledge I thought that so many devices doing that( Most of my home devices are Apple), constantly, might be messing up the signals or the router detected some sort of attack and just dropped every one off or something along those lines. So I tested banning all low battery mode in all devices for like a month, it seem to have stopped it and then it started again. What changed? my brother in law came to live with us for a few months and he brought he's PS4 ,Wii U , Macbok Pro and iPhone. This time there were not that many request and drops from devices in the logs but the wireless just started to crawl again. After a few more tweaks and changes to the routers config, including bandwidth control, static IP assignment, OpenDNS, you name it, it still doing the same thing. I got so frustrated with it that I did what any ''rational'' person would do, throw more money at it so I bought a Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200Triband wifi router model : R8000. Still have the same issue.

 

Last thing I noticed was that, I have 2 Visio Smart Tvs, that when I Tried to see Hulu or Netflix in the 32' one it would just kill 2.4Ghz band, with the Night Hawk. The other one is connected to the 5Ghz band and with the night hawk router it only gets about 2Mb download speeds Vs with the Tp-Link it received about 16Mb in download speeds and today even the 5GHz was crawling with 3k latency and .5 MBS download speeds. Even trying to load the routers interface over Wifi was impossible. I rebooted it and I was back at normal performance. So now, I only notice the wireless issues when one of the Tvs Tries to stream content. Except for today when I got home from work that nothing was playing and the wireless was crap. So here I am, seeking some advise.

 

I am really lost...

 

Please let me know if you need any more info or have any Ideas on what to look for or test.

 

Some Notes: 

 

I changed my battle station and the LAN seems to keep operating normally, so its only the wifi.

The Night hawk has Dynamic QoS, I've tried on and off with QoS.

All Routers have the most up to date firmware possible.

Neither the TP-Link or the D-Links are supported by DD WRT or Open WRT

There is one guide for the TP-Link from OpenWRT but my router does not like it.

Some one suggested me to separate the functions by using one as a gateway only and the other as an AP only (I have yet to try this).

I have wireless Alpha cards for testing, I can do my best possible with wire shark, I have a laptop loaded with Kali so I have all the tools needed for testing. I juts don't know what else to look for.

 

Thanks in Advance.

[Carlos1010]

Interesting.

[Brightglaive]

What does the wireless spectrum look like in your area? How many walls/floors made out of what materials are between your wireless AP/router and the clients? Are there elevation differences with the clients? Have you done a wireless site survey? (open signal is a great tool for surveying for android/iOS). Have you tried limiting the number of wireless devices on your network? Have you tried using a wireless packet sniffer to collect traces? have you tried turning on each individual device and capturing some traces?

 

I would start with the wireless site survey. Shut off AND/OR unplug ALL wireless devices except your AP and the iOS/Android Device you are surveying with. See what might be interfering with your signal and if you can get some clear spectrum by switching to non-used, non-overlapping channels. (Keep in mind the 40 or 80MHz wide channels may also be screwing with your bandwidth if your neighbor is not using the latest 802.11AC APs. Try keeping the channels at the standard 22Mhz size.) Make a small blue print of your entire house. Write down wireless signal strengths and latency in each room at the location you plan to use a wireless device at. Do it for all the floors of your house. Make sure you survey for BOTH 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrum and do it in the evening (that's when most people are home wirelessly streaming video to their TVS and surfing the web on their laptops). Then turn on the 32-inch tv and start a netflix video and do it again. Then try it with the other vizio tv on the 5GHz band. Then have someone start an internet gaming session on the PS4 and try again. Look for bluetooth or 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz interference (old DSSS or FHSS cordless phones are infamous for this) or non-network devices that use 2.4Ghz or 5GHz bands (some remotes and radio control vehicles do this now). Now this next bit may seem stupid or obvious but DON'T place your AP next to a microwave or next to any metal enclosure or stone/concrete/stucco wall. Check network cables and make sure there are no issues there. 

 

You should also consider that most consumer grade access points are designed for 10-devices or less. For lower bandwidth devices you might be able to get as many as 20 devices, but a PS4 and 2 smartTVs are generally NOT low bandwidth devices. Computers are generally not low bandwidth devices when in use. Hi-res video streaming can suck the life out of most wireless connections. Generally Ultra HD content requires between 12 and 27Mbps download from the web per stream. HD content can be between 4 and 12Mbps per stream. Make sure your internet WAN connection and your Wireless is up to the task. Check the latency from the ISP. 

 

Let us not forget that Apple devices tend to be "chatty" on the network. I've seen some Apple shops work very well with Apple AirportExtreme access points. Let's face it, usually Apple works better with Apple.  

 

You may also consider that if the coverage or interference is bad enough you may have to switch to multiple access points at lower transmit power to provide ideal coverage/device saturation/signal strength/latency.