Networking woes at my parents' two story house

The current network is setup with the cable modem and a Linksys E3000 router (a model with internal antennas, so they can't be adjusted) on the top floor. Right now it's 802.11n only, with separate 2.4ghz and 5ghz. The 5ghz gets little or no reception downstairs, but the 2.4ghz usually works fine for the devices there. My parents lately have been complaining to me the wifi on their pc and Roku downstairs will cut out often and they need to reboot to get the connection back.

Does it sound like an issue with the 2.4ghz signal not being strong enough, or could it be something else?

Would I be better off getting them an access point for the bottom floor or would that just be affected by the same issues as the wifi devices already down there?

 

It is normal for the 5GHz signal to fade quickly. What wireless adapter do they have on the computer downstairs? One floor shouldn't be enough for the E3000 2.4GHz signal's to fade that quickly. I have used mine in our old house and it's signal went from the 2nd floor to the basement without any issues. I would also download inSSIDer and choose the less crowded 2.4GHz signal as well as do a check to insure the computer is not near something like an electrical panel or other wireless equipment like a cordless phone.

It could simply be a settings issue, make sure the transmit power of the router and wireless adapter are both set to maximum, that the drivers for the wireless adapter are up to date. If the issue is indeed hardware related, the E3000's 2.4GHz range is average, so an external adapter with a bigger antenna or a router with better range will do the trick.

 

It's only the 2.4ghz signal I'm concerned with, I know the 5gh signal won't work down there.

The wireless adapter is the Cisco AE1000, the router firmware and the adapter's drivers are both up to date. How can I check the transmit power setting? I don't see it in the router options anywhere (I'm just connecting to the admin settings through 192.168.1.1, I don't use the Cisco Connect software).

Also there's a cordless phone in the area, but it's a DECT model, not a 2.4ghz phone. I'll look into finding a less crowded channel - but there's only one other network picked up in the house (at least with an SSID broadcasting), one of the neighbor's 802.11g network. Right now the 2.4ghz network is set for 20mhz only, with auto channel setting - should I change the width to 20 or 40?

 

I'll take a screen of my router settings once i get back home. Did they always have that problem or did it only occur after updating to firmware 1.0.04, 1.0.04 was troublesome on 2.4GHz for me, so i ended up reverting to 1.0.03.

inSSIDer will also show the signal strength in actual dB which is much better than signal bars.

EDIT: Look for signal strength in the router settings and transmit power in the adapter settings.

 

If your parents need to reboot their computers to get the connection back- it's not the problem with router- that proves that the router is still transmitting and you don't need to reboot it to get the signal back.

 

You may be on to something, I don't remember them complaining before I updated to firmware 1.0.04, but that was months ago and they've only been mentioning it recently. I'll check it out with inSSIDer when I'm at their place. I can't find any setting for signal strength in the router settings, though - do you know which panel it should be under?

I take that part of their story with a grain of salt. I imagine the signal is just being lost momentarily and by the time the PC reboots it's been reestablished.

 

Downloads is probably right about that. I just didn't feel like doing the troubleshooting when 1.0.03 was flawless for me vs 1.0.04. With some settings tweaks on both the router and adapter, you should be able to get back a stable connection.

Somewhere in the settings for the wireless, i don't remember where exactly and i'm not at home so i can't access the router.

EDIT: There you go, advanced wireless settings.

 

Yeah, the settings look just like that, so that's not it.

I did get some interesting results from inSSIDer. There were more 2.4ghz networks than I had realized, must be a recent thing. One was also operating on channel 6 (the rest on channel 1), like the one set up on the house router, so I changed itto channel 9. The RSSI was -60dB (with some dips down to the -70dB range), I imagine that's about low/medium strength. The rest of the networks in the area were all much lower (which makes sense, as they're in other houses).

Any thoughts on why the aut0 channel on the router was picking one already occupied? How about the channel width, should I leave it at 20mhz or switch to 20/40?

 

Channel width improves LAN transfers on Wi-Fi at the cost of using two channels at once (aka wide channel) so if LAN transfers aren't important leave it @ 20MHz

Also channel 9 is partially overlapping with channel 6- it would be better to try channel 11 that shouldn't overlap with 6 anymore.

 

Isn't the 20mhz width only about a channel wide in either direction? Regardless, I'll switch it to 10 or 11 - though I've heard 11 is the most popular channel after 6 and 1. Don't know how many new networks may pop up by their place in the coming months. There used to just be one, now I'm picking up four downstairs and even more upstairs - though they all cut in and out sporadically on my network list.

EDIT: Also, to my surprise, the AE1000 was using outdated drivers. That's been fixed, though the release notes only list compatility fixes for older USB ports (which may come in handy anyway, since the PC is from 2004).