Dropping Internet Connection on WiFi

[Calisro]

Op, Could your problem be simple interference? Someone cooking food in a microwave, watching a baby monitor, etc during the dropouts for example (or other non wifi interference)?

Also, fire sticks (I own 3) have terrible wifi. I can ping them and get packet loss all day long. A known issue if you google it. Fire tv doesn't have the same issues. I can stream to the sticks but they are flakey... fyi.

 

[sfx2000]

Op, Could your problem be simple interference? Someone cooking food in a microwave, watching a baby monitor, etc during the dropouts for example (or other non wifi interference)?

Also, fire sticks (I own 3) have terrible wifi. I can ping them and get packet loss all day long. A known issue if you google it. Fire tv doesn't have the same issues. I can stream to the sticks but they are flakey... fyi.

Microwaves - esp. in a business environment - lunch time can be total hell - they tend to be used during meal hours, so if the dropouts align... and they tend to be broadband noise jammers that are hard to track down without something like a WiSPY (or similar)

Baby Monitors are interesting, but they tend to be narrow band interference and don't hop much - so one can tune channels around them...

WiDi is a new sort of jammer, because they are WiFi - the FireSticks, Chromecasts, and believe it or not, Nintendo WiiU's - whether WiDI or Miracast (or proprietary stuff like the WiiU), I would also put Roku's into that category - lot of them are hidden so one won't find them with normal end-user scanners (inSSIDer and the like), but they can definitely be a problem when used..

Don't forget Wireless STB extensions from the cable co - they're more on the 5GHz side, similar to Wireless HDMI...

 

[sitavata]

Maybe test your theory by putting back on the latest firmware and see if it does it again? I could have been a flaky install of the firmware? Just my thoughts. Don't be sorry! Your input is welcome as it helps us all out to figure out the issues so we can all have better stability!

Flashed to .55 last night. No hiccups so far... odd. Didn't restore to factory settings fyi.

 

[FastLaneTech]

Op, Could your problem be simple interference? Someone cooking food in a microwave, watching a baby monitor, etc during the dropouts for example (or other non wifi interference)?

Also, fire sticks (I own 3) have terrible wifi. I can ping them and get packet loss all day long. A known issue if you google it. Fire tv doesn't have the same issues. I can stream to the sticks but they are flakey... fyi.

Thanks for the feedback. No, the business location is in a medical clinic. They mainly deal with impoverished women. Gynecological stuff but no real equipment that will interfere with the 2.4Ghz frequency. Main equipment that is electronic is a small ultrasound machine and those automatic BP/Pulse/Pulse Ox machines. Ultrasound machine is maybe used once a week. Still no issues at my personal location other than flaky internet with wife's laptop and my tablet. Still monitoring the network. I got a USB drive plugged into the router for extended log files. Letting in run for a week or two and then going to go over the logs.

 

[FastLaneTech]

Microwaves - esp. in a business environment - lunch time can be total hell - they tend to be used during meal hours, so if the dropouts align... and they tend to be broadband noise jammers that are hard to track down without something like a WiSPY (or similar)

Baby Monitors are interesting, but they tend to be narrow band interference and don't hop much - so one can tune channels around them...

WiDi is a new sort of jammer, because they are WiFi - the FireSticks, Chromecasts, and believe it or not, Nintendo WiiU's - whether WiDI or Miracast (or proprietary stuff like the WiiU), I would also put Roku's into that category - lot of them are hidden so one won't find them with normal end-user scanners (inSSIDer and the like), but they can definitely be a problem when used..

Don't forget Wireless STB extensions from the cable co - they're more on the 5GHz side, similar to Wireless HDMI...

Good ideas... only one thing: I have the devices (Chromecast and FireStick) plugged into the USB on the TV for power. Devices are powered off until the TV comes on. TV in the bedroom only comes on for about 30 mins before bed. During the day it's off. Chromecast is on most of the time because my toddler likes to watch cartoons during the day. Other than that, good ideas to consider checking out the passive devices!

 

[FastLaneTech]

Flashed to .55 last night. No hiccups so far... odd. Didn't restore to factory settings fyi.

Awesome! I assumed that could be the results. I'm very pleased with Merlin's firmware. I've never had any real issues from the hardware or firmware from Asus. I've installed probably about 50 of these routers in my residential and small business customers over the last 2 or 3 years since they came out. I tested one in the shop for a couple months and thought they were awesome. When I found Merlin's firmware, they became even more amazing as now I can do more things with it and better stability. I came across Merlin's firmware when a customer wanted the lights to be off on the device after night time because they had the router in their bedroom and the lights were bugging them. When I could do custom scripts, these routers became my only brand I sell!

 

[sfx2000]

I agree there shall be a choice of auto..or not to. But for majority of users opt for auto, they put their false hope on a spec/feature maybe you participated in drafting.

Enterprise space - autochannel is akin to herding cats, but perhaps that's also an opportunty - I know Cisco and Aruba have done a lot of work here, but as it stands, sometimes good, sometimes no so... problem there is that within their WLC's, there is a lot of legacy debt, and too many selections outside of auto-tune...

I think there is a great opportunity for someone in the consumer space to refine auto-channel selection - as it is, some work ok, some not so well...

Considering that many tablet/handset's these days, they do support channel/neighbor reporting from their perspective, this is something that could be good for all users - joe six-pack to prosumers to enthusiasts (given that reports could be provided there).

sidebar - One of the neat features of Apple's 802.11n builds - missing with their 802.11ac Airports - is that they would keep a channel list of all AP's within the BSS, which made passive discovery very handy, esp with the DFS/TPC channels* in the 5GHz band - and this was across Broadcom, Atheros, and Marvell - nice feature

*DFS/TPC channels - clients cannot actively probe against AP's there, those channels are all passive discovery which is why some tools won't find AP's there...

I have not seen this feature on any other consumer grade AP/Router... and clients outside of Mac/iOS benefit from that, as it's all standards based... combine this with what ASUS did on their AC1900 class AP's with QBSS load indications... One can find that with enterprise grade, but I think ASUS is the only one that deployed that standards based feature in consumer space...

 

[kvic]

Considering that many tablet/handset's these days, they do support channel/neighbor reporting from their perspective, this is something that could be good for all users - joe six-pack to prosumers to enthusiasts (given that reports could be provided there).

Picking a channel for your AP is akin to selecting an IRQ or I/O range for an expansion card in the 80s/90s. It's the millennium equivalent of practicing voodoo with a simpler list of choices and far less consequence of going wrong.

Enterprise markets have skilled people to do deployments. They perhaps would worry less. The cellular industry has be doing cell planning for over three decades. It's just re-deploying a subset of accumulated know-how to the WiFi space. Like some gent did in the middle of this thread to his/her neighbour. Even so as you said it still benefits them. If APs could automatically elect and assign their best channels, why not having coffee instead?

In consumer space, people shall ask for something like plug&play equivalent. Perhaps in the beginning it'll be not so reliable. We'll progress beyond that. See what happened to IRQ, I/O range, and plug&pray. It's a thing of past. Won't be a memory of more and more ppl.

sidebar - One of the neat features of Apple's 802.11n builds - missing with their 802.11ac Airports - is that they would keep a channel list of all AP's within the BSS, which made passive discovery very handy, esp with the DFS/TPC channels* in the 5GHz band - and this was across Broadcom, Atheros, and Marvell - nice feature

I still keep the 802.11n airport express..because of its form. Now have another reason to keep.

I have not seen this feature on any other consumer grade AP/Router... and clients outside of Mac/iOS benefit from that, as it's all standards based... combine this with what ASUS did on their AC1900 class AP's with QBSS load indications... One can find that with enterprise grade, but I think ASUS is the only one that deployed that standards based feature in consumer space...

Wish Asus not too tied up with tonnes of meaningless betas. Would spend time on some of the other threads like this one. lol

 

[sfx2000]

I still keep the 802.11n airport express..because of its form. Now have another reason to keep.

The older Single Band 802.11n Airport Express (looks like a Macbook Power Adapter, not an AppleTV) is a nice box - band selective (win!) and an excellent Digital to Analog audio codec, much better than the new one..

 

[kvic]

The older Single Band 802.11n Airport Express (looks like a Macbook Power Adapter, not an AppleTV) is a nice box - band selective (win!) and an excellent Digital to Analog audio codec, much better than the new one..

I still have these links in my bookmarks. lol
http://www.vonwentzel.net/ABS/Dissection-Express/index.html
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/c...-and-second-generation-apple-airport-express/

The onboard DAC chip is good for analog output. The other digital output is excellent with very little jitter. It's bit perfect for lossless music playback when hooked up to an external DAC. Guess it's off topic..

 

[sitavata]

Awesome! I assumed that could be the results. I'm very pleased with Merlin's firmware. I've never had any real issues from the hardware or firmware from Asus. I've installed probably about 50 of these routers in my residential and small business customers over the last 2 or 3 years since they came out. I tested one in the shop for a couple months and thought they were awesome. When I found Merlin's firmware, they became even more amazing as now I can do more things with it and better stability. I came across Merlin's firmware when a customer wanted the lights to be off on the device after night time because they had the router in their bedroom and the lights were bugging them. When I could do custom scripts, these routers became my only brand I sell!

Some time later I still kept losing connection - not as often (every hour or so) but still (4-5 times a day). Reflashed to .54_2 an hour ago, will see how it goes.

[EDIT]: .54_2 seems stable so far, so I'll be sticking with that.