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[MetalSlimeHunt]

So for a few years now, I've had a very severe and confusing wifi problem. In short, the issue is that my wifi crashes permanently over and over again. By permanently, I mean I have to fully restart my computer to reconnect.

The weird part of all of this is that it only happens with my laptop, and only with my specific home network. All other networks and all other devices work just fine, it is only this combination.

The other weird thing is the frequency of the crashes. At first I thought they were random, but now I think they're concentrated, and might actually be jumping in gaps by powers of two before eventually resetting after holding for a few days in a row. Or something like that.

I've tried everything I can think of. I've reset the router, I've completely cleared all of my wifi settings, I've changed every aspect of the control panel I can conceive might help. Nothing. It is really goddamn frustrating.

Windows 8.1, AT&T U-Verse.

[Thief^]

It's likely your router does something non-standard or unusual, which is triggering the problem, but no good WiFi card should ever crash regardless of what the other end does so the fault lies squarely with your laptop.

First try updating the laptop's WiFi driver and bios, and failing that, laptop WiFi cards are replaceable. Intel do a nice one which is dual-band and supports up to 3 antennas, with ultra-high-speed AC support on the 5GHz band (433 Mbps per antenna!) - if you had a compatible router anyway, but if you replace parts it doesn't hurt to future proof!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'll see about the wifi driver, but I reiterate: Across a wide variety of other networks, this has happened zero times. Ever. Over years. It is only and squarely my home wifi.

I should also probably clarify a bit what I mean by "crash". So what happens is, all of a sudden I'm disconnected. Shortly thereafter, my network reappears in the wifi listing and claims to be reconnecting. This never ends. And then the really strange part is, my network panel then stops opening altogether (fucking Windows 8 I swear). I've confirmed from the control panel during this state that it isn't reporting being connected to a network.

[nenjin]

Update your router's firmware.

[gimlet]

Hmm I had that start happening on and off too.  Upping the output power on the router helped *some*, although that seemed odd because once it hits the "I will not connect" state even being right next to the router made no difference.  Power off/power on the router would usually fix it for a while.   Switching the channel seems to have helped too.   Other than that, I dunno - my area has *some* other wifi to interfere, but it's not dozens on each channel set.

On the windows 8 system, doing the wifi diagnostic and having it reset the wifi sometimes would help, I do know that laptop (3 yr old Dell 15) has a notoriously weak wifi card though so I usually grit my teeth and hook up a cable now

[wierd]

Check to make sure the local 2.4 GHz band is not saturated.

this is especially true for apt building residents, but basically, all wifi enabled devices sit in either the 2.4 ghz or 5ghz bands. most live in the 2.4ghz band.

apt residents will frequently have problems, because when they do initial setup of thier router, they leave it on channel 6. i have, out of curiosity, run site scans near apt buildings, and a good third of the aps are clustered on channel 6. suburban residents have less problems because the 2.4 ghz band attenuates quickly in open air, so the signals from thier neighbors are easier to overpower.

since you are using windows, you can look to see how crowded your local slice of the wifi band is, using something like inssider. (not a typo. it has 2 s 's in the name.)

other things to be aware of:

wireless security cameras, older baby monitors, and other older wireless devices, like cordless phones, all live on the 2.4ghz spectrum, and do not play nice with wifi internet, because they smash the whole band, and dont have any capabiity to share the medium at all. other possible culprits are old, leaky mcrowave ovens.

the clustering on channel 6 we can easily identify, but you would need a spectrum analizer (or an sdr dongle and fancy software) to see if your neighbors are being ignorant douchebags with thier use of the 2.4ghz band with other devices. 

[martinuzz]

wifi related issue I've been having: This spring, my housing corporation decided to add a new ventilation system, in all the houses they own in my neighborhood, to improve their houses' eco rating.
The thing they installed has four settings: low, medium, high, and timed. Now if it's set to low, the fan only uses very little power, perhaps adding up to 20 euros a year in electricity costs. The other settings use more power though.

Here's the thing. The device is installed without a circuit breaker. So it's always on. And the 4-button panel to switch modes on my kitchen wall sends a wireless signal to the fan to switch modes.

Now a few times a month, at the oddests moments, the thing goes into highest mode, making loud noise and burning electricity. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night because it flips on, or I come home after being away and find it running, only to wonder how many hours of electricity I can't afford it's been using.
I've called the mechanic once, he actually was the one who told me it used a wireless signal. He said he changed it to use another frequency. It worked for a few weeks, but then I guess someone in my street got a new wireless toy that uses the same frequency, and it's been flipping on again ever since.

Now I don't use wifi on my computer, cable only. I don't have a mobile phone, I do have a landline. I'm quite sure that I don't have any wireless devices at all in my house, except the darn vent. Not that I'm a paranoid omg-no-wireless signals tin foil hatter. Not at all. It's just that I'm old enough to have grown up with cables being the thing for connecting to the nets, happy enough with a phone without a means of leaving a message or texting me when I endulge in some self-time, and poor enough to not be able to afford wireless toys I don't really need anyhow.

This thing flipping to highest setting at the most inappropriate times, and worse, costing me money I cannot spare does bother me however.
Short of pulling the fuse in my electricity cabinet (which incidentally also turns off my fridge and central heating unit), I have no way to turn the darn thing off. Since I'm in a rental appartment, I'm not allowed to do electric plumbing either, or I'd just install an on/off switch in between the power mains and the fan. Besides that, I think I'm not even allowed to turn the specific thing off completely, because the house is supposed to get at least some ventilation from it. Dunno whatever happened to opening a window regularily.

Anyone know of any tricks to shield a device from wireless signal, or jam it, in a non-expensive way?

EDIT: I still kindof suspect the installation had little to do with eco rating, and more with a shady deal between housing corp and electricity company.

[wierd]

If you don't mind doing some drastic/obscure things to your drywall, you can do this:

Sand off all the paint on the walls in that room. Now, apply drywall mud with the shovel, and embed chicken wire in the wet mud. Allow to dry overnight so it is still wet, but firm, and rake another layer on top to smooth the surface. Let dry about 3 days, then sand.

Repaint room.

No outside signals will enter the room, because you have basically embedded a Faraday cage into the drywall.


Less permanent, more ghetto, ultracheap solution:

Open the receiving device, and locate the antenna assembly. Put either an electrostatic bag, or an empty foil potatochip bag around it, and clip it shut with a plastic clip. (CAVEAT! This ghetto method will prevent the device from getting signals from the control panel! Setting it some other setting will require taking the bag off again. The chickenwire drywall isolates the room, the control will work just fine inside that room with the receiver)

You are missing the obvious source of the activating signal though.

Your housing authority had the whole block installed with the same units, and likely by the same installers. Rather than think about and plan for signals escaping one house and getting to another, and planning channel reuse accordingly so attenuation can do its job, they probably have everyone on the same channels, and your neighbor pushing his control panel to change the fan setting, is also changing your fan setting, because the receiving side cannot tell the two control panels apart.

Short of getting the installers to set the channels properly for the whole neighborhood, Faraday sheidling the utility room is the next best option.

[martinuzz]

You are missing the obvious source of the activating signal though.

Your housing authority had the whole block installed with the same units, and likely by the same installers. Rather than think about and plan for signals escaping one house and getting to another, and planning channel reuse accordingly so attenuation can do its job, they probably have everyone on the same channels, and your neighbor pushing his control panel to change the fan setting, is also changing your fan setting, because the receiving side cannot tell the two control panels apart.

Short of getting the installers to set the channels properly for the whole neighborhood, Faraday sheidling the utility room is the next best option.

Quite likely. The worst part, the recieving part, the fan, is embedded in a cheap plastic chimney outside on top of my kitchen's flat roof (which I am not allowed to stand on. The Netherlands is great, but it has an overwhelming amount of paternalizing little rules and regulations). I guess I could try putting a chicken wire bowl over it. But doesn't a faraday cage need to be enclosed on all sides, including the bottom?

[wierd]

Ideally, yes.

That's why I suggested the static bag/crisp bag.

Cheap, effective, easy to manipulate.

With the bowl though-

The attenuation through the roof might be enough to put the neighbor's signals below threshold, while still allowing yours through.

[Thief^]

This is why wireless devices should use a digital protocol with some kind of pairing like WiFi-direct or Bluetooth or the like.

This is a very common issue with analogue wireless devices.

[nenjin]

Not a wifi problem per se...

But we've had troubles off and on for the last couple years. (Our block is right across the street from the smaller of two college campuses in town.) After we harassed TWC enough they did...something and internet speeds generally improved.

But lately I've been noticing (especially when playing Path of Exile because it's so sensitive to latency) that the instant my roommate turns on his computer, wakes it up, opens Chrome, whatever, I start getting crazy lag spikes between 150ms and 300ms. This goes on and on for over an hour before it finally settles down. He experiences nothing. I've checked his PC for stupid bullshit and didn't find anything, aside from all the Alienware garbage it came pre-installed with. (Who knows what dumb things it does.) Only other thing of note is that I'm hardlined into the router through about ~45 feet of ethernet cable, but that shouldn't have much if any bearing on things.

[wierd]

45 feet is well under the 100meter max cable restriction for ethernet.

More than likely, this is the consequence of "Lazy programmer treats user resources as endlessly available; does not want to spend time or effort in being efficient, deadlines more important than user experience."

AKA, the system waking up decides that instead of using cached data in its memory from when it suspended, and being polite about its refreshing of credential stores, its tracked status with facebook, what the fuck ever, it is going to DO THAT RIGHT NOW, DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES.

It slams the network interface with a fat wad of queries, and hammers the shit out of it until it gets responses.

You can probably track that with wireshark.  I'd bet money, especially if it is a win10 machine. That connection to the freaking mothership is all important, you know.

[ChairmanPoo]

I had the same problem with my wifi, but it was solved after I picked my router and did a handstand (while holding it). Have you tried that?

[wierd]

you can always try chicken blood and voodoo as well.