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Suddenly horrible wi fi connection to router

S

SantiClaws

Senior member
Suddenly, I'm having issues with the wifi connection to the router. Sunday, I spent much of the day gaming online with no issues, no lag, nothing. Pingtest.net was giving me an "A." Monday morning, horrors. Pingtest.net gives me grades of "D" or "F", low ping, jitter in the hundreds sometimes instead of single digits like it was. Download speeds are down from 15Mbps to as little as 0.68. Router is in the living room, from the bedroom I'm having trouble even logging into the router. Tried switching channels, no joy.

This morning, the connection was perfect again, and this afternoon, back to barely connecting. In the living room, things are better but still nowhere near as good as they were a few days ago. The weird thing is, even through all this I'm getting five bars on the wireless connection icon and inSSIDer is showing a solid wifi connection to the router. My guess is I'm suddenly getting serious interference from somewhere (condo), but should I not see a poor connection to the router either on the computers or using inSSIDer.

Any ideas?
 
Ran some additional tests - connected to a dd-wrt router I have, sitting six inches away. Connection is solid, but download speeds are iffy and pingtest shows issues. A wired connection to the router gives great download speeds, although still only shows a "B" as far as quality of connection. Hmm.
 
AnonymouseUser said:
Have you also tested with a wired connection? It's possible that your internet connection is flaky, not the wifi.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did. It's not as good as it should be, but it is not horrid like the wi fi connection. And even if it was the internet, why would I have trouble even logging into the router?
 
SantiClaws said:
Ran some additional tests - connected to a dd-wrt router I have, sitting six inches away. Connection is solid, but download speeds are iffy and pingtest shows issues. A wired connection to the router gives great download speeds, although still only shows a "B" as far as quality of connection. Hmm.
Click to expand...

To clarify the bolded part, is that a wired connection to the main router, or the dd-wrt router?
 
Your wireless security: WEP or WPA2? If WPA2, is WPS enabled?

Next time it seems flaky, change your wifi password and immediately try another test.
 
AnonymouseUser said:
To clarify the bolded part, is that a wired connection to the main router, or the dd-wrt router?
Click to expand...

Main router.

AnonymouseUser said:
Your wireless security: WEP or WPA2? If WPA2, is WPS enabled?

Next time it seems flaky, change your wifi password and immediately try another test.
Click to expand...

WPA2. I am fairly certain WPS is enabled, but not 100%. I am not home at the moment. I'll try your suggestion tonight. I expect it will still be flaky as I was barely able to connect to the internet this morning.
 
SantiClaws said:
WPA2. I am fairly certain WPS is enabled, but not 100%. I am not home at the moment. I'll try your suggestion tonight. I expect it will still be flaky as I was barely able to connect to the internet this morning.
Click to expand...

My theory here is that someone may have gained access to your router via the security vulnerability built into WPS. While that won't necessarily cause the issues you describe, they may be torrenting over your wifi at random times which could, so changing the password (and disabling WPS) would surely lock them out.
 
OK, changed password, disabled WPS and no change. Still acting funny. I'm wondering if the modem is having issues, although it seems somewhat unlikely. This is driving me crazy.
 
Isolate the modem by doing a large LAN transfer over wifi. If speeds are good and consistent, then it may be the modem or even the cable between the modem and router.
 
SantiClaws said:
Suddenly, I'm having issues with the wifi connection to the router. Sunday, I spent much of the day gaming online with no issues, no lag, nothing. Pingtest.net was giving me an "A
Click to expand...

If it is due to interference you can check it by changing the wireless frequency to 5GHz or change it to dual mode. Also check if it is due to internet issues by connecting a computer directly to the modem.

Update the router firmware, may be it will fix issues with router.
 
Last edited:
Let me get this straight. You have two routers, one is flashed with DD-WRT and one is not and both give bad results? If this is the case you could have a bad Internet connection or the modem is going out. You can change your IP address by going into the router using the MAC address clone feature using a different MAC address and save, Reset the modem and you should have a new IP address.

If you want to test your connection try smokeping. Let this run a day or two and check the results. http://www.dslreports.com/smokeping
 
lexco said:
If it is due to interference you can check it by changing the wireless frequency to 5GHz or change it to dual mode. Also check if it is due to internet issues by connecting a computer directly to the modem.
.
Click to expand...

John Connor said:
Let me get this straight. You have two routers, one is flashed with DD-WRT and one is not and both give bad results? If this is the case you could have a bad Internet connection or the modem is going out. You can change your IP address by going into the router using the MAC address clone feature using a different MAC address and save, Reset the modem and you should have a new IP address.

If you want to test your connection try smokeping. Let this run a day or two and check the results. http://www.dslreports.com/smokeping
Click to expand...
It's a zoom 5350 modem/router combo. It doesn't have a 5Mhz mode, only 2.4. I've tried putting it in "modem only" mode and connecting a Linksys router flashed with DD-WRT. It may be the modem or the internet connection, although wired directly to the zoom router the connection is never terrible. I'll try smokeping. Unfortunately, testing is somewhat complicated by the fact that the problem is intermittent.
 
When you said you couldn't hardly connect to the router are you referring to the cable modem/router or the router with DD-WRT?
 
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