Wi-fi conflict?

[Guineafowl]

New house, new BT smart hub. 4MB speed is poor, but usable.

Intermittently, the connection seems to drop, so badly that it won't even load the BBC news website - times out. Mainly evenings. Sometimes 1 or 2 am when I doubt anyone else is online.

Hub light stays blue. BT engineer is going to check the line, but the light suggests connection is fine.

Seems to happen more when the wife is home. I've tried dropping her devices out on the hub control screen, but no joy.

Also fiddled with mode 1,2,3, separating/switching off the 2.4/5 GHz channels. It's behaving like some sort of wi-fi conflict.

Next stage is to connect something (PC, when I get a long enough ethernet cable) to see if a wired connection is ok during the fault.

I'm a bit out of my depth with MAC addresses, DHCP etc. Any suggestions?

 

[minimutly]

can you connect via an app to the router to see what it's seeing? Please don't assume I know anything about these, just suggesting. I have a similar issue at our rugby club, Wifi is a nightmare, with extenders latching onto the tills, next door etc.

 

[Guineafowl]

I can get into this control interface, which is where I've been doing the fiddling.

I did try making list of devices connected with fault present/not, but nothing conclusive.

 

[hotponyshoes]

Check windows update & phone update settings etc.
My Internet was terrible between 1-2am and that was because everything was updating/backing up at the same time.

 

[jsf55]

Do a speed check and see how the ping is, lower is better https://fast.com/

 

[Agroshield]

Can you isolate the problem to between computer and router (wifi) or router and outside world (BT line).

There used to be an old command called 'ping'. It you set that up to run 24/7, say once a minute, you can look at the log files to see if there is any pattern and where the problem lies.

An ethernet cable between computer and router in the short term would eliminate any wifi issues and maybe aid diagnosis.

My microwave sometimes kills my wifi; my boiler firing up sometimes does the same (but not at 1am)

The router should do some event logging. See if you can access that and if it tells you anything.

This old post is probably not directly relevant to you, but it shows the kind of information the router can provide and might be a place where knowledgable people hang out:

Smart Hub 2 event log entries

Hi All, I am new to the community and have joined to try and get some advice on continual intermittent broadband service degradation that I experience. I believe I have Fibre to the cabinet and copper from there to my home. My broadband has been investigated many times by BT/Openreach. At...

community.bt.com

 

[prepman]

Welcome to the BT hub. There's quite a lot going on with it. I get those issues occassionally and some. Generally restarting router clears it. The hub has remote access enabled as default and also provides a 'BT Hotspot' for the general public. Also re-branded VOIP as 'wifi-calling'. Not sure if there are remote tweeks going on behind the scenes, a bit like 'Horizon'. My previous routers were mine and under my control. The BT installation would make Heath Robinson
smile.
Addendum: normally get ~11Mb/s very rural

 

[Guineafowl]

Current result.



I usually use broadbandspeedchecker, which gives similar results. During the fault I can't even load the page.

Re: updates - it's not behaving like excess traffic, more all-or-nothing. Pops back up to 4ishMB, then completely goes away, then back again. I've tried cutting all connections except the thing I'm using, no joy.

I can get the event log. I'll have a look when the fault reoccurs.

 

[jsf55]

Yeah, it's all a bit slow

 

[voipio]

Are you line of sight with the router, when getting the 3.7Mbps download speed?

Presumably, at those speeds, your broadband connection comes in on copper, rather than fibre. Turn the router off and then try and view the available WiFi access points visible to your device, and try and get an idea of their signal strengths. Are there any wireless security cameras in the vicinity, either yours, or the neighbours?

With the router on and ready, and the Smart Hub Manager displayed on your browser, click on the Status box. What is the value showing as the WAN Link Speed?

 

[hotponyshoes]

If you are on copper first thing to do is check for noise on the line.
Analogue (not cordless) handset. Dial 17070 (then option 2 I think)
Line should be complete silence
Repeat the test when you are having a problem.
If it's reliably failing at exactly 1am test at 12:58 and listen for a few minutes to see if a sudden noise spike is disconnecting you.

 

[addjunkie]

Current result.
View attachment 466037


I usually use broadbandspeedchecker, which gives similar results. During the fault I can't even load the page.

Re: updates - it's not behaving like excess traffic, more all-or-nothing. Pops back up to 4ishMB, then completely goes away, then back again. I've tried cutting all connections except the thing I'm using, no joy.

I can get the event log. I'll have a look when the fault reoccurs.

We used to get similar problems on our old copper lined….local engineer would restrict speed for stability….india would sweep the exchange and remove the restrictions, it became less stable so dropped regularly. We are very rural…it was a joke. Initially went 4g with a directional dish ariel about 50mb. Now on Starlink….230mb

 

[colnerov]

You say it's a new house, I wonder if they have used foil backed plaster board, that can affect Wi-Fi.

 

[Guineafowl]

Are you line of sight with the router, when getting the 3.7Mbps download speed?

Presumably, at those speeds, your broadband connection comes in on copper, rather than fibre. Turn the router off and then try and view the available WiFi access points visible to your device, and try and get an idea of their signal strengths. Are there any wireless security cameras in the vicinity, either yours, or the neighbours?

With the router on and ready, and the Smart Hub Manager displayed on your browser, click on the Status box. What is the value showing as the WAN Link Speed?

I can sit the iPad next to it, and that's the speed. For rural places, that's fine, believe it or not.

Yes, copper. No near neighbours. Only EE wifi and EE wifi-X (from my phone, I think). I'll try switching it off.

Status box doesn't show WAN link speed, but download sync speed is 4.58 Mbps, upload 448 kbps.

If you are on copper first thing to do is check for noise on the line.
Analogue (not cordless) handset. Dial 17070 (then option 2 I think)
Line should be complete silence
Repeat the test when you are having a problem.
If it's reliably failing at exactly 1am test at 12:58 and listen for a few minutes to see if a sudden noise spike is disconnecting you.

Will try that, thanks. The only analogue phone we have is an old rotary Bakelite one, but should do the trick.

We used to get similar problems on our old copper lined….local engineer would restrict speed for stability….india would sweep the exchange and remove the restrictions, it became less stable so dropped regularly. We are very rural…it was a joke. Initially went 4g with a directional dish ariel about 50mb. Now on Starlink….230mb

Yes, if they can't sort it, I'll cancel the BT and go for Starlink. 230Mb!

 

[ajlelectronics]

Yes, if they can't sort it, I'll cancel the BT and go for Starlink. 230Mb!

Also consider 4G which I use and gives up to about 60Mb. It costs less than Starlink and you don't need to lower your moral standards to do business with one that tortures monkeys as part of it.

Here is the result from today...

 

[Guineafowl]

You say it's a new house, I wonder if they have used foil backed plaster board, that can affect Wi-Fi.

New to me, I mean. Built around 1900, but may well be some foil-backed stuff here and there. Doesn't seem to be a signal strength problem, however.

 

[Guineafowl]

Also consider 4G which I use and gives up to about 60Mb. It costs less than Starlink and you don't need to lower your moral standards to do business with one that tortures monkeys as part of it.

Here is the result from today...

View attachment 466042

Yes, I'll consider 4G. If that's BT you have, maybe they'll offer it to me if they can't sort it? They have a 1 Mb guarantee.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Yes, I'll consider 4G. If that's BT you have, maybe they'll offer it to me if they can't sort it? They have a 1 Mb guarantee.

Yes it's EE from before it was merged with BT. It is the one that performs best where I am, but it wouldn't be my first choice otherwise.

The scan is from Fing on iOS.

 

[Guineafowl]

There used to be an old command called 'ping'. It you set that up to run 24/7, say once a minute, you can look at the log files to see if there is any pattern and where the problem lies.

Just having a play with the ping command. Who do I ping? Default gateway, primary and secondary DNS no go, even though everything's working at the moment.

Edit: hub gateway IP address 192.168.1.254 gives back all four pings within 1ms, so that's nice.

Left it running for a bit:

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.254:
Packets: Sent = 153, Received = 153, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 5ms, Average = 1ms

 

[reb78]

Also consider 4G which I use and gives up to about 60Mb. It costs less than Starlink and you don't need to lower your moral standards to do business with one that tortures monkeys as part of it.

Here is the result from today...

View attachment 466042

I was about to say this too. There's a fibre cable on the road now but we used to have copper only when we moved in here. Initially we just tethered to phones but they weren't stable enough as routers for all the teams calls needed when covid hit us all. We got a 4g router and get about 30mbs and it's a decent stable connection.