Neighborhood Wi-fi War

[TripleThreatTLT]

I need some help with my home Wi-fi. I live in a suburban area and when I do a wi-fi scan I come up with easily a dozen networks. The problem I'm running into is that whenever I change channels to a somewhat clear channel within a day or two that channel is clogged up. My neighbors also must have decent routers because they often have a greater signal then I do in my house. This has been going on for a few years now.

I have a ASUS RT-N66U, is there anything I can do to boost my signal and drown out the neighbors? Maybe just a repeater? My router is in one corner of my house and my problems are on the other corner of my house, its not really feasible to move the router though.

Wireless-N is working fine but some of my devices don't support it.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Well, by your last comment about WiFi-N, I'm assuming you're using 5GHz where possible.

So your other option is to either run wiring or crack your neighbors Wifi and just use that.

Using a repeater at the other end of the house might solve the problem, sort of, by drowning it out. But I don't like it as a solution because it's really just nuking and paving over the mess instead of resolving it. Not very neighborly.

And if you're going to run wire for a repeater, you might as well run a wire and hard-wire a few devices. (Assuming they're not all WiFi-only.)

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Change to 5ghz, leave your channel on auto, that way if things change you dont have to mess with it, it will figure out the clearest channel.

 

[TripleThreatTLT]

Wish I could just switch to 5 Ghz. Problem is one tablet, one laptop and the Wii don't support it.

I've tried leaving the router on auto select channel but my issue is the channel that is clear at the router is not always clear in the living room where the other devices are typically used.

 

[Eug]

Switch to 5 GHz for some equipment and leave 2.4 GHz on for other equipment.

 

[Venomous]

That router has dual radios for a reason

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Wi-fi is always crowded in suburban zones. Even though your neighbors may have better signal, if you're leaving channel selection to automatic, are you actually having any issues attributable to this??

 

[code65536]

Embrace 5GHz. Most 5GHz routers have two separate radios and can service 2.4 and 5 at the same time.

As for client device support... there's not much that could be done for the tablet or Wii, but there's hope for your laptop,

There are three things I do with every laptop that I buy for myself or family:

1) Throw out the HDD and replace with a SSD.

2) While the system is open for #1, throw out the WiFi card and replace with something from Intel.

3) Reinstall the OS.


Most people already do #1 and #3, but few do #2. Most of the WiFi cards that come with laptops are pure crap. Single-stream single-band pieces of junk. I rarely see Intel cards even being offered, and if they are, they're only for really expensive high-end things. And it's a pretty cheap upgrade, too, if you go looking around on eBay. My most recent system, a netbook, was upgraded from a single-stream single-band piece of junk from Ralink that got a poor signal to a proper dual-stream and dual-band Intel 6200 for about $3 from eBay. And I hate having things sticking out, so I much prefer directly upgrading the internal card than getting some ugly USB thing (which usually cost more and perform worse anyway).

 

[PliotronX]

It is less convenient but perhaps disabling SSID may help if they are manually changing channels. If their AP's are automatically changing channels this won't help. I think what I did a while back that helped was disable 40MHz spread and my theory of why it helped was that it wasn't occupying more than one channel space. 40MHz in a crowded neighborhood is almost never faster than 20MHz anyway. In fact the conflict of forcing 40MHz will cause dropped packets and wild latency spikes. Try to tweak some settings like that and fragmentation and CTS (Clear to Send). If the stock firmware does not have these features, look into getting DD-WRT on there. I'm willing to bet flashing DD-WRT might in itself help with the problem.

 

[boomhower]

5Ghz is my suggestion as well. Living next to old folks does have it's advantages in cases like this.

 

[TripleThreatTLT]

Yes I'm aware it supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz I use both. The issue is the devices stuck on 2.4 GHz get such poor performance they are essentially worthless 1/2 the time. Everything from here on out that I purchase will have 5 GHz.

I think I'll try some of the things that PliotronX suggested and if that doesn't help then I'll look at a repeater / extender and see if that improves the situation.

Or I'll talk my wife into selling the laptop, upgrading the tablet that doesn't support 5 Ghz and then do something with the Wii... Honestly its primary use is a netflix streamer for my kids playroom, I'm sure I can find any number of cheap devices to do that with 5 Ghz support.

 

[JackMDS]

The general approach that I take for Network Coverage issues is the following.

The best way is to lay few CAT6 cables to central locations in the house, install Access Points, or Cable/DSL Routers configured as an Access Points ( Using a Wireless Cable/DSL Router as a Switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html ), and connect them through the cables to the Main Router.

You do not want/can not/hate/your client hates to lay Cables!

WDS (repeater) Wireless network is the answer

Start with One affordable Wireless Router that can do WDS (the reason to start with WDS capable Router is that in case you need to add more Wireless WDS hardware the original Router has to support it). If you are lucky your environment is conducive to get covered with one Good Wireless Router, you are done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_distribution_system

Due to the added flexibility, it is a better solution to choose Routers that can work with the free 3rd party firmware DD-WRT

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WDS_Linked_router_network

Using a Laptop loaded with Wirelessnetview, do a Wireless survey, http://majorgeeks.com/WirelessNetView_d6102.html

According to the signal strength reading, identify spots that have strong signal, and spots with weak or No signal.

Repeaters have to be put in places that have relatively strong signal and are in proximity of the "dead" areas.

How many WDS units are needed? It depends on your specific environment. It is a good idea to start with one additional unit, try it, and decide on the Next step according to the outcome.

 

[Squeetard]

You know you can boost the signal on that router right?