More fixes for a regularly repeating Wi-Fi outage

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LANGALIST By Fred Langa In my previous column, I discussed techniques for curing an annoying and recurring Wi-Fi failure that appeared on a set schedu
[See the full post at: More fixes for a regularly repeating Wi-Fi outage]

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woody

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[MHCLV941]

Scheduled restarts sound like a good suspect.  They happen on schedule and will produce a noticeable outage.

There’s a somewhat similar function elsewhere in the router menus that could also cause a regularly recurring Wi-Fi hiccup: the <b>DHCP-lease</b> settings.

I would not worry much about this one because, most of the time, a DHCP client automatically attempts to renew its lease as soon as 50 percent of the lease duration has expired.   Unless the DHCP server is just being a putz, the client will usually get to keep the same address when its renewal request is processed.    Also, in my experience, the DHCP server specifies the lease’s duration, not the leasing device.

This also suggests that even if DHCP lease renewal were involved in a recurring outage, it would not be one that happened on a schedule.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by MHCLV941.

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Most DHCP clients do attempt to reclaim the same IP address well before it is set to expire.  Unfortunately, there are ISPs that force new IP address assignment at the end of a lease period.  Windstream’s use of this “capability” was a heavy-handed attempt at preventing customers from running servers (or using long-running connections).  Whenever an IP address switch occurred, there was an outage.  I doubt they were (or are) the only ISP to view the behavior as beneficial.

 

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My experience is that if you want a stable WiFi experience use a Intel adapter with the most recent drivers, which are available from the Intel’s website. Use Qualcomm Atheros as alternative (though I’m not too excited about Qualcomm about Qualcomm support / drivers on Microsoft Windows). Broadcom is a decent alternative on Microsoft Windows too (it’s support is awful on Linux)

I’ve used several Mediatek, Ralink and Realtek based adapters (both PCI-E and USB) and they’ve always been problematic for me in some form or way.

When it comes to access points use either Cisco Aironet in case of an enterprise or Ubiquiti UniFi in case of an SMB. They always work flawlessly in my experience.

I’ve tried a wide variety of brands in the past and most of them would give some form of problems (whether it comes to modules or access points) and the above mentioned brands just work without requiring any special form of tweaking or tuning in my experience.

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Also check your neighborhood.
Internet: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months.

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satrow, Microfix

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I tried to place 2 versions of this BBC story and a comment earlier – wouldn’t accept either, no idea why not 🙁

Old TV wipes out broadband but FTTP on way to Welsh village a little more useful stuff around it here.

Intrastructure team report.

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GoneToPlaid

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Wow. This was a fascinating news article to read.

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Further details and ideas for troubleshooting RF/EM Interference from Sonic (ISP).

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And it apparently only took 18 months for BT’s ‘crack team’ of OpenReach engineers to work out what the problem was. Thank goodness OpenReach didn’t send in its ‘B’ team… we could be talking decades or more. 🙁

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And worse yet, not only did the interference knock out the broadband signal, it miraculously scrambled perfectly good English into this:

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Paul T

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Hm, wonder if the TV owner was the same funny old guy I ran into last time I was in that area…

(Yes, actually, there was a time once when I was equally fluent in all three of my native language, English, and Welsh. But that was fairly long ago…)

But really, Wi-Fi outages can happen for all kinds of reasons people wouldn’t expect. Like watering houseplants.

(Wi-Fi is very effectively absorbed into water. Including when it’s in flowerpots or plant leaves. So while aesthetically you might want to hide the AP behind a flowerpot… don’t.)

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This needs to narrowed down further to see where the problem lies.

Is this with one device or does it happen at 8:30 pm on all devices on the network? How about hardwired devices?

If all devices including hardwired devices are affected then it is most likely a problem with the router, modem, or internet service. If only wireless devices are affected then it could be the wifi router or interference from something. If only one device then that device has the issue.

It’s tough to troubleshoot an issue without narrowing down where it is occurring.

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