Poor wireless performance with my setup (Netgear & Cisco)

[waltermmm]

Hallo everyone

This is my first post here. I think it's a good forum for discussing wireless equipment.

My problem is that I have a very poor wireless performance in my flat.I have a Netgear WNDR 3700 Router and a Cisco E2000 Router, my internet connection is about 100/10mbits and my flat is about 160 m².

I have connected the E2000 to a free lan port of the WNDR3700, so I'am using it as additional router. I have 3 networks, the WNDR3700 has a 2,4 ghz and a 5 ghz network and the E2000 has a 2,4 ghz network.

WNDR3700
My performance is very poor. For example in a room 10 meter away from the router I get max 60mbit so 6MB/s under best condition. When I connect another device the speed drops rapidly to 1mbit, also when just watching a youtube in sd or surfing with the other computer (not very data intensive).

So whats the problem?

I have many other wireless devices in the neighborhood but i configured exactly the channel nobody uses.
I have checked the database for the wndr3700 and found out it can handle only up to 430 simultaneous connections, which seems very poor, because I have many devices. (1 TV, 1 Playstation 3, 1 XBOX 360, 7 Laptops, 2 Desktop PC and about 6 Smartphones)


Everytime when there are more than 2 or 3 devices connected and using the internet, everything internet based is going very slow. So I tried with another router.

But also the E2000 does not work better, the E2000 is even slower than the wndr3700. The E2000 can handle up to 30mbit under best condition.

Does somebody has an advice, what I can do? Do I have to buy another router or a better one?

Help is much appreciated.

thx in advance

Walter

 

[JoeJoe]

Download this app and run it on a laptop.

Your flat is pretty small and shouldn't need two APs.

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

Check what channels are free, for 2.4 Ghz, there are only 3 channels that don't overlap, those are 1-6-11.
For your two routers, select one to be channel 6 and the other to be channel 11.

For your laptops, use the 5Ghz channels, less interference and faster.

Sounds like you have wireless problems, as both of those routers should be able to handle your ISP connection speed.

 

[waltermmm]

Thank you very much for your reply

I'm not sure exactly how to use the program, but I executed it on my PC.
But my PC is not able to recognise 5ghz. so the 2,4 ghz first.

I have found 14 networks

Franc (Chn 1)
Wohnung (Chn 1)
Thomson0E450E (Chn 1)
Wg5-1 (Chn 2 + 6)
wg5-3 (Chn 5)
Wg2011 (Chn 6)
Netgear34 (Chn 6)
UPC00763 (Chn 7)
Thaimassage (Chn 10)
RVital (Chn 10)
UPC002343 (Chn 11)
tsmoriri (Chn 11)
Tele 2 (Chn 11)
Kollwitz (Chn 11)

So these are all networks I can find. Mine are Wg5-1 and Wg5-2 and I have also WG 5-2, which is the 5ghz one.

So what is your recommendation for the channels?
I would say not 11, right?

Most of the wifi around my flat are 2,4 ghz based so 5ghz should be better but isnt.

thx

Walter

 

[JoeJoe]

Can you post a screen capture of a screen like this one here:

http://www.metageek.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/info2copy.png

So we can help you select which channel to use.

Because you live very close to other people, your wireless 2.4 Ghz performance will be reduced.

A channel is not just one channel wide, it overlaps neighbouring channels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

See here:
http://www.taurus2.co.uk/g0twn/images/802_11b_overlap.png

So you'll have to choose the least bad channel for your flat.

5Ghz will help you a lot, because it doesn't go through solid objects as well as lower frequencies, also there are a lot more channels available to you to select from.

 

[waltermmm]

Ok i have taken a screenshot

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/wp2i4.jpg

But also with 5ghz I have not a good range within my flat.

PS: Sorry for the worse image quality, but it seems a cannot upload it in 1920x1080.

THX

 

[JoeJoe]

Thats a bit of a mess isn't it.

I would put both your APs on channel 1 in single channel mode. (20 Mhz wide, not 40 Mhz wide)
You see how a single channel selection actually over laps neighbouring channels, giving only 3 true channels.

Is your router wg4-1 on that image? Or is that image capture without any of your wireless turned on? Can't see any wg5's.

 

[stevech]

it's not the number of nearby WiFi systems (SSIDs) but rather, which ones, if any, are heavily used - at the same time you use yours- and if they are near the same channel you've chosen.

The test tools don't indicate how heavily used the channels near yours are. Tools that do so aren't free.

You can make an educated guess: From a Windows command window, on a laptop using your WiFi, do this
ping -t (your gateway address such as 192.168.1.1)
let that run for a long time, in the evening busy hours.
If you see more than 2% or so of ping times that are much longer than the norm, your neighbor may be a heavy user. Alas, if that neighbor streams HD TV, (not Netflix), and rarely so, you may not encounter the problem in the times you measure.

Change channels (1, 6 or 11 is the usual best choice).

after making your assessment - several evenings of pings, you may find ch 11 the best, or perhaps ch 1.


The SSIDs in your display that are using 40MHz mode (2/3 of the band), may be a heavy user, or may be a benign, naive owner.

Most WiFi uses very little of the available air time/bandwidth.

 

[waltermmm]

Sorry my AP are WG4-1 and WG4-3 which are in 2,4ghz frequency and WG4-2 which is working at 5ghz.

So I should set both to channel 1? On the Cisco (WG4-3) I used only 20mhz channel width but on the netgear (WG4-1) I couldn't find that option, so I think its automatic.

I tried to use both at channel 1 and the 5ghz is set to channel 36.

It's not really an improvement. I did the test today when all devices are connected as usual. On the WG4-1, which is the most used one, I get about 5-6mbits, on the WG4-3 I get about 25mbit and on the WG4-2 (5ghz) I get about 35mbit.

But the most annoying thing is, that there are always "peaks" where the whole networks reacts very slowly. I think the network is then overloaded and in my opinion this has to do with the connections but I am not sure.

This happens for example when I'm watching Youtube suddenly the video stops buffering, its like I'm getting disconnected and then I have to reload the page. Then it works again.

Most problematic is with online games, or once I did an Lan Party with Cs 1.6, all computers connected to the Wlan, and we recognized that sometimes the ping hits 500ms or more and then it works again. It's not like disconnected physically, but peaking. Its difficult to describe. The load is not balanced.

The most strange thing is, that transferring files via network share is slower than downloading something from the internet. Mostly goes not over 500kbit.


In conclusion I would say not the speed itself is really the problem (when WG4-1 is slow I just connect to one of the other ones) the problem are always these "peaks" where the connection get interrupted and websites stop loading and so on.

 

[JoeJoe]

You have the Netgear set as 40 Mhz, change that to 20 Mhz by putting the max speed to 145 Mbps instead of 300 Mbps (that you'll never ever achieve anyway).

By having one at 40 Mhz, you are messing up a lot of channels there, it many new routers the 40 Mhz mode is disabled in the 2.4 Ghz range for this reason.

Put both your 2.4 Ghz channels on channel 1 in 20 Mhz mode.

 

[sfx2000]

Move WG4-1 to Channel 1 @ 20MHz - wide channels in an urban/dense area - more harm than help...

WG4-2 - move to channel 6 also at 20MHz

See how things work - right now, you're jamming yourself on both AP's with the wide channel on WG4-1 with the second AP.

Aim for about 20dB difference from neighbouring AP's and you should be good to go. In other words, if they're at -90 dB, you want your AP's around -70 dB.

A couple of other things - make sure that all AP's are using WPA2 and that WMM is enabled - another casual observation, and I've seen this first hand in the 2.4GHz band, leave the AP in b/g/n mode, rather than n-only.

Last note - your 5Ghz AP at Ch 36 - consider moving that up to 149/157 - it's a higher power channel - the low channels are restricted power in many locations due to regulatory constraints to reduce/eliminate radar interference...