Help Diagnosing Networking Problem

[Vorcen]

Hey guys, 

 

Recently moved into a rented house share with a load of other working professionals. Great house etc, etc. But the internet as a whole is terrible. The up and down speeds coming into the house are absolutely fantastic, 210 down and 12 up is way more than sufficient, the problem is the connection drops consistently and repeatedly making doing anything a tedious endeavour in pointlessness. Streaming is kind of fine due to buffering windows, but gaming, skyping, discording or even trying to use a work VM? Not a chance. Networking isn't really my thing, but I have a Masters in Comp Sci, so I thought I'd have a look at trying to diagnose the problem. I've been in contact with the landlords, and they've contacted the ISP who've informed them it's all fine on their end (though that isn't exactly a new default for ISPs).

 

Here's what I've uncovered.

 

- They're using the ISP provided homehub with the aid of some kind of TP link booster.

- Each of the 6 rooms has a smart TV plugged into a wall socket which connects back to the TP link. In total there are probably around 16-20 devices connected to the hub at peak.

- Wireless signal strength on a variety of channels at both 2.4 and 5mhz varied from -82 dBm at best to -96dBm at worst. This led me to believe it was a wifi signal problem.

- However, I then tried plugging directly in via ethernet to the wall jacks in two rooms, and the router directly, using two different machines and two different cables, and the consistent drop outs persisted through ethernet. Which I found weird.

 

My current theory is one or a combination of, either a) The hub is completely not up to the task and is just dying under the pressure or b) the hub is bjorked.

 

Like I say though, Networking isn't my speciality, so I'd appreciate a second opinion.

[Donut417]

14 minutes ago, Vorcen said:

Hey guys, 

 

Recently moved into a rented house share with a load of other working professionals. Great house etc, etc. But the internet as a whole is terrible. The up and down speeds coming into the house are absolutely fantastic, 210 down and 12 up is way more than sufficient, the problem is the connection drops consistently and repeatedly making doing anything a tedious endeavour in pointlessness. Streaming is kind of fine due to buffering windows, but gaming, skyping, discording or even trying to use a work VM? Not a chance. Networking isn't really my thing, but I have a Masters in Comp Sci, so I thought I'd have a look at trying to diagnose the problem. I've been in contact with the landlords, and they've contacted the ISP who've informed them it's all fine on their end (though that isn't exactly a new default for ISPs).

 

Here's what I've uncovered.

 

- They're using the ISP provided homehub with the aid of some kind of TP link booster.

- Each of the 6 rooms has a smart TV plugged into a wall socket which connects back to the TP link. In total there are probably around 16-20 devices connected to the hub at peak.

- Wireless signal strength on a variety of channels at both 2.4 and 5mhz varied from -82 dBm at best to -96dBm at worst. This led me to believe it was a wifi signal problem.

- However, I then tried plugging directly in via ethernet to the wall jacks in two rooms, and the router directly, using two different machines and two different cables, and the consistent drop outs persisted through ethernet. Which I found weird.

 

My current theory is one or a combination of, either a) The hub is completely not up to the task and is just dying under the pressure or b) the hub is bjorked.

 

Like I say though, Networking isn't my speciality, so I'd appreciate a second opinion.

You might consider going on on purchasing a modem and router. Most ISP supplied modem/routers are not up to the task. If you are having issues on Ethernet then the ISP supplied box needs to be replaced.