Why does my wifi in my building go out every night at exactly the same time?

I am in canada now, im from the usa. When i first got here, the internet wifi was very bad at that place. I then went to another apartment and was told internet wifi here was very fast and reliable. The wifi is fast and reliable here... however, sometimes it does disconnect a bit and a bit slow but thats not a big problem usually.


Well i had noticed something very strange. The last week or so i went to bed pretty late and am online. I noticed that at exactly 3:40am... the wifi immediately disconnects and when i click on the internet icon in the bottom right to look for the internet connection... its no longer there. There are 2 wifi internet names/routers in this building that i live in and i was told they have 2 of them in case one of them have a problem, i connect to the other. Lets call them wireless connection a and b. Wireless A is very fast and reliable. B isn't that reliable and many times you can't connect to it though but its still okay. During the day seems to be good but Wireless A is faster than B so i stick with that one.


Anyways, at around 3:40am... wifi goes off. Check the wireless connections... both of them are gone. So i cannot connect to any wireless internet connection at all. I see some other wifi networks but of course thats someone elses and i cannot connect to it b/c u need a passcode for it.


The next day or so, i went to bed pretty late so just going online. Same thing... 3:40am... wifi goes off and when you search for the wifi connections, both are no longer there. So thats when i knew this isn't a coincidence because the first time it happened... i remembered what time it was b/c it was like exactly same time. I then go to bed b/c i cannot even go online anymore.


Yesterday i went to bed late again just to see if this is indeed a disconnect at exactly same time. What you know... same thing 3:40am or so it disconnects and no wifi at all. The thing that is different though is i stayed up still to see when the wifi would come back. I think around 4:05 am or so the wifi connection reappeared and i could connect to it no problem. However, it didn't seem to do that the 1st time as i recalled i stayed up to 4 something and still no wifi.


Does anyone know what is the cause of this? It seems very strange that the wifi would go out and the wifi network names would just go away at exactly same time every night. I was told if the wifi ever have any problems, just walk upstairs to this door where the routers are place... its like one floor under me and in like this place where its in a stairway of a closet. Im not sure how to explain it. To disconnect the power and replug it and wait 1 minute.


I have not done this yet at all b/c i haven't had much problems during the day. The thing is im curious why this happens at exactly 3:40am.


Anyone here ever have this problem? The only thing i know is the name of the internet in my building is Videotron.
More about : wifi building night time

 

The router might be set to turn off its radio at a schedule. Most Netgear routers have this feature in their firmware. See picture below:

 

i had a work router provided by some company that would disconnect for exactly 3 mins and 15 seconds....no one here was ever able to figure it out and i called tech support endlessly. It was literally perfectly timed to be off for 3 mins 15 seconds -_- It was also also sporadic. It would happen more often at night but at all times of the day. It would happen like once every 20-60 mins during the day but at night it would be like 5 mins on 3 mins and 15 seconds off -_- Though we had 3 different routers installed all of them did it. Though 20 other buildings had the same router and never did it -_- I swear i am cursed when it comes to computers. I would chalk it up to flakiness that is unfix-able if cbautis is wrong.

 

In your case, I would guess that it's an interference issue. Have you tried setting up the router in a different room or to an area that is 3 meters (or more) away from the location where the router keeps dropping out connection?

 

i lucky don't work there anymore but there was nothing to interfere with it....nothing that released RF noise. (EMF?) It would also not explain why it was worse at night...unless it was causing interference on its own? Less people in the office causing it to bounce more? Less places to absorb bouncing waves? Cinder block walls and tile/cement floors. Lack of people letting its waves bounce more? That would be very odd and almost unheard of.

 

I like to mention another thing. There are 2 routers in the building. One is a tlink and one is a cisco router. What should i do now?


Thing is i play online poker and even though i rarely play that late at 3:40am, there are times where i will be playing that late.


Also whats interesting is last night around 4:15am or so, both internet connections came back.


Thoughts on what i can do? Thing is these are the 2 routers that the building uses and its shared throughout the building so i don't think i can change the settings by myself? Could i go 192.168.2.1 like i do in the usa to change the settings? But of course i dont want to mess it up and im pretty sure i shouldn't be doing this at all? The thing is dont i need to know the password to change the settings?

 

It is an intervention my friend...an intervention! ^-^ Try going to dsl reports and look at tools. Do a ping test or whatever it is called for your ISP modem. Find what your IP is and use one of those monitoring tools to use a server to ping it every 5 mins or whatever the interval is. It'll hit the IP address for a couple of days and if it shows down time than it is your modem....I know you know your routers are the ones vanish but you should make sure that isn't the only issue.



Also can you connect to it through wires? that might still work


Also @cbautis2 The router at my old work would work just fine if you connected to the wires -_- and you would always be connected in the 3 min 15 second down time but nothing would go through and i mean it was exactly 3 mins and 15 seconds :/

 

Never seen that kind of behavior, but I'm sure it isn't a router problem but more of the modem having some conflict with the router which makes it appear disconnected even though the status says connected. It's weird that pinging the router doesn't work for exactly 3 min and 15 sec. It's probably modem messing up with router's firmware, but I'm just speculating.

 

Hi no i cannot. Teh wireless router is 1 floor below me in this room that looks like a big closet? there is no wired internet...

 

yea pinging it says connection was unavailable or whatever it says in cmd. I could ping the internet all day and the wired worked while the wifi was down :/ How does the wired work and not the wireless -_-

man that blows

 

Yup, probably a scheduled reboot.

I do that with my router, it suck that bad.

 

I would agree with cbautis2 that it is probably set to reboot at that time. If it does it every night at the EXACT same time then it is likely they have this set in the router itself. However, a side note my ISP has a bottleneck every night between the hours of 7:00pm to 11:00pm where speeds decrease on the fiber network tremendously. Not exactly the same issues as you are having as yours is wireless and a different problem, but I feel your frustrations that's for sure!
Truckin

 

Directly below? Where's the drill...

 

Even netgear switches can be configured (through the console though) to turn off at a certain point.

Lol

 

Is there a way to not have this router reboot at that time? Thing is i rarely would be on the internet that late at 3:40am, but i play online poker and some times there are tournaments that go very late and it might go longer than that.


Would i be able to have the router configured to not reboot?


Yes both of these routers and wifi connections... 3:40am exactly same time... it goes out. Then you cannot see these 2 wireless connections anymore.


There is no way i can connect a an ethernet cable from my laptop to that router. It would need to be over 200 feet...

okay so im connected to the wireless connection and typed 192.168.2.1 and i see it ask for username/password


My router is this one


Tp link 340g router


I have no clue at all what is the username/password. I typed username/password, admin/password etc but it doesn't work at all. Thus that would be the only way to fix these settings? I assume if i log in, then i could then not have this reboot that happens at that time?

 

Two things - first one - the router is password protected and we can' discuss ways of bypassing security.

Second - even if you logged in there seems to be no scheduled reboot feature in this router's firmware.
Check out this emulator from TP-LINK for 340G.
I can't see this option in the firmware.

 

Hi my internet went out again at 3:40am. It came back at 4:08am. Its 4:30am now.


I see the link you gave for the emulator. I never seen that before or know of stuff like that. So basically thats how it looks if i log into it with the correct username/password?



I had typed the 192.168.2.1 but when it ask for username/password, i typed admin for both and it doesn't work. So what do i do then? I guess its in the settings that router turns off always at same time and only way to fix this is by going to settings to change this right?


The other thing is this building shares the wifi throughout the whole building. And of course i dont want to do something wrong but the thing is im the one person in this building that really is on the internet a lot, everyone else doesnt seem to use it that much.


What can i do? I dont know the username/password to the router. Should i just go and reset the router thus to bypass the security? Thing is wouldn't it look exactly like the emulator or it might be something different? Im thinking i can just go and reset the router, then rename the router the same as it is now and make sure to use the same password and then make the changes to the router and that would be fine? The thing is everyone in this building who lives here is given the password to the 2 wifi connections and of course i will not make any changes to it. I just want to turn off that option that turns the wifi off at 3:40am.



And the person that i spoke to about this... just told me the wifi should never have any problems. But of course... they are not awake this late so they wouldn't notice and neither would anyone on this building.



So if its not in the firmware, so what does that mean? That it HAS to be the internet cable company?

 

My bad Downloads, I assumed it was "his" router and the technique I described is often necessary for VZ troubleshooting.

 

I wouldn't advise resting router to its default settings this way. If the password on a router had been changed - the reason was to prevent people from logging in and changing anything.
That would be bypassing security measures -it's not that legal and it's against forum rules to discuss it.

What's more if the router is set to i.e. PPPoE with modem being in the bridge mode, the login and password issued by the ISP and granting access to the network are stored on a router - reset it to its defaults and Internet stops working and you have no way of reverting this action until someone who knows login and password provided by the ISP comes along to fix it - nothing works.

It's possible that PPPoE is not used, it's possible that it is, it's also possible that other settings have been altered - you can't possibly know that and by resetting router to its default values you may as well kill the Internet for the whole building.

Different points- there is no scheduled reboot on this TP-Link router and even if it was it would take up to 2 minutes- no more. This particular router also has no Access Control settings either - these are settings that allow to schedule when Internet access is allowed or disallowed.

To sum it up- reverting the router to its default settings to gain access to it is not a good idea not only because it may cause the Internet to stop working for everyone but also because there are no settings on this router that could possibly cause such behavior as described by the OP.

 

Hi. Well the other router is a cisco router. Would you need me to check the name of that model and tell you what that is? Again there are 2 routers that is used in this building, they are basically next to each other. One is a cisco and one is the tp link. And one is connection A and one is connection B. What is strange about this is when i logged into connection A and did the 192.168.2.1, it goes to ask me for username/password for the tp link one and even when i logged into connection B and did the 192.168.2.1, it went to the TP link one as well. Whats strange is shouldn't one of the connections go to the cisco router?

 

is it an AP and not a router?

 

What do you mean AP?

 

Its possibly an alarm dial out. At my house I have DSL, my alarm takes priority and dials out to check its connection every night. It increases by one minute every night and like every 60 resets back to the default time. Usually around 1025

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

okay so i just went to take a look at the router and noticed a few new things that i did not notice.

The wireless router is a TP Link TL WR340gd and NOT WR340G. Made a mistake at reading it. The reason is b/c i have to walk on some stairs to get to the top of this area to view it... its basically not in a flat surface. Imagine you keeping a router in the attic... you can see what i mean by uncomforatable as i have to climb up stairs to view it... the router is attached to the side of the wall.

Another thing i noticed is the Cisco Router that i saw... its a Cisco Linksys. I think this might be the modem? It has 2 wires that it connects to. One is a black wire that is obviously the power button that connects to an outlet at the bottom. The other wire is a white ethernet cable that connects directly to the back of the TL WR340gd router.

Now here is the thing that confused me a lot about the TL WR340gd until i took a closer look. There is one white wire that connects to the cisco linksys modem/router. There is a black wire that is the power wire that connects downwards to an outlet. There is a blue ethernet wire that connects somethign upwards. I have no clue where it connects to because the wire goes up and i don't know where it connects to.

And the interesting thing is there is also another 2 wires that is connected which makes no sense. One is red wire and another is a black wire. I had no clue where it connected to until i went back down and saw that those wires actually connected to two different apartments... the red wire went from the router connected all the way to apartment 1, the black wire went from the router connected all teh way to apartment 2. Im using 1 and 2 for example and both are on the 1st floor. Im on the other hand on the 4th floor so its basically next to impossible to have a ethernet cable that long to connect it to as if i do this, it would obstruct the walking on the stairs.

So i assume those 2 apartments, they basically just attached an ethernet cable from their laptop/desktop to the rotuer so they can get wired internet. Am i correct with this assumption? It made no sense why a router would have so many wires... 5 wires connected to it. And would i be correct to assume that the cisco linksys is basically the modem and a router?

But when i type the 192.168.2.1, it only shows the TP Link.

Is there a chance those 2 apartments one of them have the internet configured for the settings? Again i know both those apartment, they dont sleep late etc so they have no clue that internet is out that late.

 

TP Link TL WR340GD and G are the same basic routers - I don't remember TP-Link's naming schemes exactly but it marks something relatively minor like detachable antennas or lack thereof.

Linksys doesn't seem to be a modem because it lacks WAN going into it- cable should go into the modem (Internet from ISP) another cable should connect it to TP-Link (working as an AP) and yet another would be the power cable.

It looks like TP-Link is a router here and blue wire is the Internet cable while Linksys works as an Access Point. Check what's the connection speed of Wi-Fi when you're connected to it (as reported by Windows, not a speedstest result).

Also do you see two wireless networks and you can choose between them or am I confusing things?

 

i think both were seperate networks and you could login to either...not sure if they had different passwords though

 

If that's the case - TP-Link is an original router (the one with WAN-in) but being a cheap one and a 802.11g router is was neither fast enough (Wi-Fi is slow) to service several apartments nor would it have sufficient range (cheap routers don't have amps).

I suspect someone added a more expensive Linksys router with 802.11n and greater range working as an AP without disabling Wi-Fi on TP-Link (it's not necessarily a good idea but it will work).

A= Linksys, B= TP-Link

If both networks disappear simultaneously this means power is cut off to both devices. If it was a scheduled reboot it would take up to two minutes to complete not to mention TP-Link can't be scheduled to reboot. If it was ISP's fault both networks would still be visible but would show limited connectivity.

Drew01- go for a 3 a.m. walk and check what happens there. It doesn't seem possible that there would be a timer connected to the power outlet - why would it be?
Maybe it's a question to ask to whoever is the building's caretaker - it's remotely possible that this line is used for some sort for utilities that get rebooted every night.

I don't know how critical is this for you. I keep my modem and router connected to UPS - I'd rather not lose connectivity when I'm trading. My UPS should easily support 45-60 minutes of modem router and NAS running (NAS would get switched off if needed). If that was to run out of juice I'd still have my phone to share Internet until battery runs flat and then it could still draw power from notebook's own battery via USB.

All in all if poo hits the ventilator I have two different ISPs, notebook with an extended battery and a phone & router to provide Internet access.
The phone is gonna get an extended battery soon too (not to mention it has a mobile version of an app I use to trade on financial markets in case system on the notebook crashes).

What I'm saying is - if you play poker for fun - so be it. If you earn money doing this you should develop a setup with failsafes built in.

 

i was just going to say that....lol

 

Why not get your own internet?

 

why when it is free?

 

Want to answer few things.


There are 2 wifi connections. Lets call them Connection A and Connection B. Both have the same password if i want to connect to either one. I always choose connection A. But if connection A has problems or doesn''t work, i choose B. Usually one of them will work very good while the other is either good, okay or not that good. So i always see these 2 connections when im on my laptop until that time of course.


Here is the thing. I had asked if Connection A... if that was for the TP Link or for the linksys. Thus there are 2 wifi connections and 2 routers. Connection A which is usually the more reliable one... i was told it was for the TP actually and connection B was for the cisco linkys. That seems to be the opposite of what you expect? The thing was they was not sure which one it was. Is there a way to find out?


Another thing is i had went to that router and connected my laptop with an ethernet cable to the tp link router port. I was connected to Connection B on my wifi. Then i connected the ethernet to it and was still connected to Connection B. Does that mean that tp link has to be connection B and thus connection A is the linksys and thus the person told me the wrong thing? Again they are not sure. Also when i check the wifi connection properties, connection A is WEP. Connection B is WPA2. Does that give you a clue which connection is which router?

Last night i went there at 3:45am and took a look. The wifi of course went of as usual at 3:40am. When i went there... both the linksys router and the tp link router was powered off. I then unplugged the power cord from each of them and plugged it back in, same thing. The power didn't appear. So this means that at 3:40am, the power goes off in both routers since when i got there 3:45am... there was no power at all.


What does this mean then?



I play online poker for a living. I moved to canada from the usa to continue. So internet is the most important thing for me.



To the person that says why don't i get my own internet... i was told internet in my building is the fastest in this city. Its videotron and very very reliable. I agree its reliable most of the time... but the wifi goes out every night at that time causes me problems even though i dont play that late usually. Also, i was told they need to come to the building to install it and usually require a 1 year contract. Im only allowed 6 months in canada b/c im a usa citizen. I been here for 2 months already.


When i was apartment searching, i made sure i got a place with internet included b/c i dont want any hassle of having to get my own internet and needing someone to come and install it, want something that is there already. My apartment is also furnished as well with cable tv and everything as its better this way than nonfurnished.

 

so you unplugged it and replugged it and it was still off?

let me clarify. You looked at it and the router appears off (no lights) unplugged it and replugged it? And it was still off?

if so that means the source of the power is going off. Granted i am busy and skimming this thread so i may be off on something.

 

I went up there at 3:45am. I saw both routers... all the lights are off in the routers... thus no power. I unplugged the black power cord that is connected on the routers end... then plugged it right back in. Did that for both routers. I didn't touch the other end of it which it connected to of course but that should be no difference. The routers still both were off with no power... no lights etc...

 

Yeah - that's what I thought was happening. Try asking management or a caretaker about this. It's not IT related at all. You could possibly buy a $50 UPS and connect it there but why would you spend your own money.

 

how long is the down time again?

Worse comes to worse a surge/UPS might be enough...the super small cheap ones

like

46 bucks and has 18ish mins for 50 watts (look at 350 model). How long is the down time?

Amazon.com: APC BE550G Back-UPS ES 8 Outlet 550VA 120V: Electronics


plan UPS search on amazon

Amazon.com: UPS



Worse case if this is money to you a little investment won't hurt if the landlord is an idiot/lazy. Just hope you can get it back after you leave and no one steals it while you are using it. Is there a place where it is out of reach from thieves?


BTW if you hunt around you can get cheaper. Tiger direct/rakuten/amazon has lots of brands. APC/Cyberpower are great brands. I always get cyberpower because they are just as good in my eyes and are a fraction of the price. Plus they got some great sales on them.

Also remember to use camecamelcamel.com-------\/

 

By downtime you mean how long is it out for? Well its 3:40am every night. There were 2 nights when i was still online and it came back on around 4:05 to 4:08am. The other nights i have no clue b/c i went to bed like at 3:45am. The other nights i stayed up till 4:15 and it still didnt seem for wifi to come back though im not 100 percent sure b/c i was very tired.

Wait so what you want me to do now? You want me to buy one of those things or see if there is a timer around it? Should i go and take a look to see if its near the outlet or something like that? So i cant turn it off or have it turned off?

 

The simplest thing would be to ask someone in charge of maintenance in the building or try a different wall socket if there is one there.

 

Worse case if this is money to you a little investment won't hurt if the landlord is an idiot/lazy. Just hope you can get it back after you leave and no one steals it while you are using it. Is there a place where it is out of reach from thieves?


BTW if you hunt around you can get cheaper. Tiger direct/rakuten/amazon has lots of brands. APC/Cyberpower are great brands. I always get cyberpower because they are just as good in my eyes and are a fraction of the price. Plus they got some great sales on them.

Also remember to use camecamelcamel.com-------\/


What do you mean get it back when i leave? Im pretty sure if i put it there, no one would care about it nor touch it. The thing is this building theres less than 20 apartments. So i would have to put a UPS right next to the router is that correct? Well the thing is anyone can access that room as long as they are living in this building. But im pretty sure almost no one even bothers to go into that room since most of them don't really care that much about the wifi. Also the ppl in this building all seem to be normal honest people so im not worried about that.


Im confused. So there isn't anything that can be done without buying that UPS? Can't the timer be turned off? How does it even look? I will take a look again.

 

They told me they will call the cable internet company for them to come and look at. So this would be completely unnecessary right? Because if so, im going to have to tell them to not call the internet company.


Can you explain what you mean by different wall socket?

 

Wall socket as in power-plug wall socket.

 

so you want me to see if i could plug in that black power cord from the routers... to another socket?

 

Different power source - that's what I want. Maybe it's the power-line that is used for something particular and is switched off for 30 minutes each day for a reason.
It's possible that those routers would work 24/7 if connected to a different power-line.

 

i was just saying worse case you can get one....if all else fails (i also hold people in a very low regard...people suck). Also if you could take a high res picture of the room and upload it or a video of the area it would greatly help us to see what might affect it.

 

Or the routers actually require rebooting every now and then to function at best performance. Not daily, but maybe once every two weeks or so. Then whoever got bored to manually reboot them put a timer on the power supply to reset them nightly since obviously no-one needs internet connection at that time...

As far as I know we (as in my employer) use that approach on some ancient equipment that cannot be replaced but won't handle several days of load without going belly-up. So that setup could be left over from the previous ISP system.

Just guessing.

 

i never understood why they need to be restarted -_- Poor design i guess :/

 

How else would you regain functionality on a router that does not respond to ping or let traffic thru or even less allow remote admin connectivity edit: ...and usually requires driving to the customer and access thru few locked doors.

 

Not poor design but poor firmware mostly - memory leaks, NAT table overflow and poor wireless drivers causing Wi-Fi to lock up.
All in all that causes routers to either significantly slow down or lock up completely.

 

Okay so does this mean it is 100 percent a timer then? The person is contacting the person that owns the building about this situation and im still waiting for the reply.

 

it has to do with the power source...thats all we can tell you from here

 

Well the person is going to contact the person that owns the building. Will the internet cable company ever be involved in this? Assuming that person knows about the power source thing... he would be able to stop it from happening pretty easily right?