Frequent Internet Outages with Modem/Router Combo

chipdouglas · 08 Jun 2012

I relocated to the SE from the NW, and just had Charter set up my Internet and cable down here. TV works great, but the Internet cuts out constantly; maybe 25 times a day. Usually it's just for a few seconds, but maybe 2-3 times a day it's for several minutes.

In the NW I was on Comcast and never had these problems. It's supposedly a 30 Mbps connection. I bought my own modem/router combo instead of renting. There were 2 available at Best Buy; mine was the slightly cheaper "Zoom" brand.

The technician who installed it was minimally knowledgeable and only got it working on a fluke; he was prepared to leave me to phone tech support when it just randomly started working. Ever since then it's been choppy.

Could it be the router? I thought it was Charter, but nobody would pay for service this bad.

FWIW I don't use them as much but I'm not sure the problem extends to my iOS devices (iPhone, iPad). They seem to work fine. Also, I can download P2P (legitimate files, don't worry) at speeds of 2+ Mbps even with this "problem".

What's wrong? Where do I start?

2xg · 09 Jun 2012

Welcome to Seven Forums,

That could be an interference, we could find out.
Please download and install Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector. After the installation double click the shortcut icon from your dekstop, do a screen capture of it then attach and post it here.
Wi-Fi Inspector | Xirrus

chipdouglas · 12 Jun 2012

Thanks, and here's a screenshot:

chev65 · 12 Jun 2012

chipdouglas said:

Thanks, and here's a screenshot:

The channels look to be rather overloaded in your area, this is most likely the source of your disconnections. It could also be the security and encryption that you are using.

You may need to try a few different channels before you find a good one. 1 ,6 and 11 are in use near you with very good signal strength so you might try using channel 3-5 or 7-9, it's hard to say for sure which one is best but 11,1 or 6 aren't good ones to use here. Try a few different channels until you find one that gives you the highest signal strength. You might try looking at your routers settings to see if you have an 802.11n mode which would be faster than the g

You can change the channel in your routers set up page.

You also might want to try using WPA2 for security with AES for encryption, most Windows 7 drivers are made to work with this security and encryption. You can make those changes in your routers set up page as well. :)