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Airport Extreme and dropouts on wifi internet

J

jctivo

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2011
90
0
I have FIOS 25/25 and a FIOS router which is connected by a cat5 cable to an Airport Extreme that I bought 1-2 years ago. I also have an apple express that I use for audio streaming. I also have amped rec10 extender to get to the other side of my house.

Anyway in the last several months maybe up to 6 or more, my wifi has been extremely unreliable. Especially with my iphone 5s and my dell laptop.

It gets to the point where I have to switch to the verizon fios wifi network which has a much weaker signal.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or what to look for?

Thank you in advance.
jctivo
 
jctivo said:
I have FIOS 25/25 and a FIOS router which is connected by a cat5 cable to an Airport Extreme that I bought 1-2 years ago. I also have an apple express that I use for audio streaming. I also have amped rec10 extender to get to the other side of my house.

Anyway in the last several months maybe up to 6 or more, my wifi has been extremely unreliable. Especially with my iphone 5s and my dell laptop.

It gets to the point where I have to switch to the verizon fios wifi network which has a much weaker signal.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or what to look for?

Thank you in advance.
jctivo
Click to expand...

Is the AirPort disappearing from AirPort Utility but still broadcasting a signal?
 
Best 1st step is always turning everything off and the rebooting all devices in sequence: turn on FIOS router - wait 45 seconds, turn on AE - wait 45 sec, turn on ........

If this does not help you may have to look into what signals are competing on the WIFI bands you are using.

You have mentioned 3 WIFI transmitters you have: FIOS router, AE, Amped extender. If you add potential neighbor WIFI you got a lot of transmitters competing for essentially 3 non overlapping WIFI channels (2.4GHz band).

Get something like WIFI Scanner or iStumbler.
http://accessagility.com/products/wifi-scanner.html
Example:
image017.png

Put at least your WIFI transmitters on different channels (1,6 or 11).
Is the FIOS WIFI needed? If not, it just may cause additional congestion.

Use a Laptop to measure signal strength throughout the house.
You may find that in one area you neighbors WIFI transmits on the same channel as yours with more signal strenght than yours.

Best results are always achieved by connecting WIFI transmitters via ethernet (one at each corner of the house).
 
thanks for suggestions

I will try both when I get a chance. Wifi was working spotty last night but working well enough for my wife and she had work to do so I did not get a chance to try those suggestions last night.

jctivo
 
trying things...

1. airport utility does not show up when the wifi apple extreme is flaking out on my phone.

2. I have windows not mac so somethings are not available to me (istumbler), but I did find the wifi scanner windows beta so I'm going to try that.

3. One question I had when I got into the apple extreme settings, I had these choices. Did I select correctly?
a) create a wireless network (this is what was selected)
b) connect to a network using Ethernet to extend the network or create a second network (not selected)
c) join a wireless network (not selected)
d) disable wireless and connect to a computer or network using ethernet

more as I come across it.

Also, if there is an ios app that might work better because like right now, I don't have wifi on the laptop but I do on the iphone. I have downloaded fing and network analyzer but I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for except for that 2.4 ghz graph that one of you attached which I can't seem to find in an app.

more to come. thanks again for all of the tips so far.
 
jctivo said:
1. airport utility does not show up when the wifi apple extreme is flaking out on my phone.

2. I have windows not mac so somethings are not available to me (istumbler), but I did find the wifi scanner windows beta so I'm going to try that.

3. One question I had when I got into the apple extreme settings, I had these choices. Did I select correctly?
a) create a wireless network (this is what was selected)
b) connect to a network using Ethernet to extend the network or create a second network (not selected)
c) join a wireless network (not selected)
d) disable wireless and connect to a computer or network using ethernet

more as I come across it.

Also, if there is an ios app that might work better because like right now, I don't have wifi on the laptop but I do on the iphone. I have downloaded fing and network analyzer but I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for except for that 2.4 ghz graph that one of you attached which I can't seem to find in an app.

more to come. thanks again for all of the tips so far.
Click to expand...


You want it set to "Create a Wireless Network" like you have it set now.
 
jctivo said:
I downloaded sirrus wifi inspector.



I noticed a lot of 1 and 6 wifis near me (like 12) but only 2 others on 11.



So I switched to channel 11. Not sure if that will do the trick or not.



Should I have my amped wifi extender on the same channel or not?
Click to expand...


The extender should use a different channel. Does the network behave properly without the extender?
 
without the extender

I can try leaving off the extender for a while and see if it behaves better. It's just that the wifi doesn't cover the whole house if I do that.

I will report back in a few days after I can have some evenings and a weekend to see if I have any more problems.

I appreciate all of the help and advice.
jctivo
 
jctivo said:
I can try leaving off the extender for a while and see if it behaves better. It's just that the wifi doesn't cover the whole house if I do that.



I will report back in a few days after I can have some evenings and a weekend to see if I have any more problems.



I appreciate all of the help and advice.

jctivo
Click to expand...


It wouldn't surprise me if some of the issues came from interference from the extender.
 
Still Dropping out on iphone5s - wifi analyzer

I am attaching the wifi analyzer.. Maybe it's a iphone 5s problem more than anything else?

lots more people on channel 11 tonight.

No idea what to do now. The extender is off (not plugged in).
 

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