Wifi Experts out there?
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Hello all,
I am having some incredible WiFi issues, ever since moving to my new flat, but not only then, but also in all my other previous flats (not counting home).
The issue is that my wireless suddenly "loses connection", but this only lasts very short intervals, such as one or two seconds, sometimes even a moment. These problems do not show when, for example, streaming videos, downloading, etc. but become apparent while playing online. The game would freeze for a moment (as if losing connection), then the connection would be restored, but with the obvious "jump".
In my current flat this problem is minimal, but in my previous flats (two to be exact) Wifi was simply unbearable. I would keep on connecting and disconnecting, to such an extent that even checking my e-mail would be impossible. Interestingly enough using a cable worked perfectly fine, so I know it was not an issue of the speed or strength of the connection. Some people in the flat(s) did not have such issues (or they simply do not play online, like me).
The Wifi would refuse to operate properly (in the previous two flats) even if I sat right next to the router. I experimented with changing channels on the Router, to suit my laptop's needs better, but that was a complete failure (and my flatmates reported their connections failed to work).
As such, my possible theory is that my laptop is in some way acting up, or that something could be breaking up the connection constantly. I can live without playing online (NWN being an exception, it was never that demanding) but the constant hiccups are frustrating.
Just to straighten out one thing, my laptop would work mildly well back home. But "home" had very little if none other WiFi connections in the area. I am currently living in an urban area, but it is by no means the centre of a Metropolitan area, it's just the "burbs" of Brighton.
tl;dr version: Wifi has hiccups, I believe it must be something wrong with the laptop, not the router.
Cheers for any possible suggestions/help!
WriterX
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I know this will sound silly, but I fixed it, or so it seems. What was the problem? My very own Bluetooth Adapter inside the Laptop.
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How far are you from your wireless access point? If the signal has to go through too many walls, microwaves, etc it can cause the signal to become degraded.
This could also be an issue with your adapter on your laptop.
Best solution is to simply use a cable. You are going to get the best performance that way anyways.
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Adapters have a thing called a "metric", which tells Windows which adapters should be used preferentially.
Micro$soft, in their infinite Wisdom, set the metric order to be Ethernet, Wifi, Dialup. With cough Dialup getting preference.Which means if you have a cable attached, and then connect to wifi, it will use the wifi. if you then establish a dial-up connection, it would use that.
I'm guessing that Bluetooth is probably considered dialup… and that if it's enabled, and sees a BT service offering a netowkr connection, you might get a burp as it checks to see if it can establish a route to your game server over it.
That would explaion why you'd see that behaivour in some places but not others. And if you either disabled the BT, or disabled networking over BT (unbinding it to TCP), then the problem would go away.
Science crap, sorry.
Eh, could be a dozen other thing,s but this one explains why it's location sensitive. -
okay you wifi experts, explain this one:
My laptop works perfectly fine with the wifi from my folks place. Detect no more then 2 or 3 connections, the 2 extra being the neighbors oviously and is located in the basement so it goes throw the floor. But when i'm at home, the connection sucks to the point I have to use a cable. At home, it detects at least a dozen network. And is only in the room on the other side of the hallway so 2 walls to cross.
Interference?
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Wifi quality/speed goes down logarithmically based on number of radios on the channel. if your are seeing a dozen networks, there are probably 30+ radios.
Not only that, but the entire wifi network will slow down to B speed if there is a single B device in range. Suckage.Change the "Channel" on both your router and computers to something else. Channel 1 would be a good bet, assuming you're currently on 6, the usual default.
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Games, is that the case with N type routers as well? I thought only up to G it used to slow down. Not entirely sure though.