Wifi comes and goes?

[tonsingle]

I have an asus rt-n16, and merlin 376.47. Starting today, the wireless aspect of the router seems to come and go. It's not a distance issue - I'm right next to the router. It was on twice today for a while and then vanishes.

When it is 'gone', I can't connect to the wireless network via either of two cellphones or two notebooks. In the merlin UI, the little wifi icon remains green throughout. I'm not sure what the icon means - does it tell me that the software has wifi turned on, or does it tell me that wifi is actually working (IOW it would not be green if there was a hardware problem)? Wifi has been down for most of the day.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I've unplugged the router twice, once for 5 minutes. Didn't help.

The wired network has remained stable. This is a secured home office network environment. The router config is probably about as 'default' as it can be...nothing exotic or advanced. The router has been a champ for several years, though I came to merlin from dd-wrt just about 10 days ago. I've never seen this behavior before.

 

[thiggins]

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/31945-yes-routers-do-die

 

[tonsingle]

Your reference to the non-eternal nature of routers was reasonable and I sprung for a new ASUS router RT-N66U, partially because I've found the asuswrt software approachable.

The new router ran without issue for about a week. Then it started repeating the same behavior, or similar. Wifi from it detected via notebooks and cell phones show a strong signal but won't connect. Sometimes it fixes itself; once a router power off seemed to help.

Today a power off does not help. The two blue wifi lights are blinking like normal, but cell phones and notebooks can't connect. Now as I am finishing up this post, wifi came back for all devices...that's 20 minutes after I rebooted it. Two minutes later, no wifi for all devices.

Firmware Version:3.0.0.4.376_1071

So, I could have a old router that is end of life, plus a new router that is defective...or? What alternatives are there?

 

[jlake]

Your reference to the non-eternal nature of routers was reasonable and I sprung for a new ASUS router RT-N66U, partially because I've found the asuswrt software approachable.

The new router ran without issue for about a week. Then it started repeating the same behavior, or similar. Wifi from it detected via notebooks and cell phones show a strong signal but won't connect. Sometimes it fixes itself; once a router power off seemed to help.

Today a power off does not help. The two blue wifi lights are blinking like normal, but cell phones and notebooks can't connect. Now as I am finishing up this post, wifi came back for all devices...that's 20 minutes after I rebooted it. Two minutes later, no wifi for all devices.

Firmware Version:3.0.0.4.376_1071

So, I could have a old router that is end of life, plus a new router that is defective...or? What alternatives are there?

Very unlikely that your old router is end of life and very unlikely that your new router is defective.

Try some basic troubleshooting steps.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12453

Here's the link to the latest firmware for N66U:

http://www.asus.com/Networking/RTN66U/HelpDesk_Download/

Edit: inSSIDer link (wifi analytics tool)

http://www.ampedwireless.com/wifianalytics/

As a general rule of thumb, buying a new router is not the first step to troubleshooting.

 

[tonsingle]

When I posted here a month ago the only response I got was from the site admin pointing to an article here that indicated that the symptoms I was seeing were typical end of life. Buying a new router wasn't a knee jerk action; I just couldn't get it to work reliably and had already spent hours trying to find a way to get it to work.

I did update the firmware for the new router; that's part of the initial setup; but it apparently didn't go out and get the latest version, and I had trusted that it had. The older router was at the current version of merlin (376.47).

How can you state "Very unlikely that your old router is end of life and very unlikely that your new router is defective." I just don't get that. Did you read what I wrote in my original posting? Why is the the 'routers don't last forever' article here and why are newegg forums etc full of postings about bad new routers from folks that know much more than I do about network issues?

There are no motors or other likely sources of interference. We are not in a densely populated area.

Right now I'm back on my very old linksys wrt54gs because while it may be slow it seems to be more stable than either asus unit.

 

[kenhlan]

I had some 5G issues on my AC66 that I could seem to work around by

a) Selecting a specific channel vs Auto - lower channels seemed more stable
b) Setting 20m Bandwidth. (40, 80 and 20/40/80) was unstable on mine.

Never did find the issue, but returned it for another one.

Haven't connected the replacement one up yet to see any similar issues.

At least something different you could try, to characterize the issue.

 

[4Leaf]

I have an asus rt-n16, and merlin 376.47. Starting today, the wireless aspect of the router seems to come and go. It's not a distance issue - I'm right next to the router. It was on twice today for a while and then vanishes.

When it is 'gone', I can't connect to the wireless network via either of two cellphones or two notebooks. In the merlin UI, the little wifi icon remains green throughout. I'm not sure what the icon means - does it tell me that the software has wifi turned on, or does it tell me that wifi is actually working (IOW it would not be green if there was a hardware problem)? Wifi has been down for most of the day.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I've unplugged the router twice, once for 5 minutes. Didn't help.

The wired network has remained stable. This is a secured home office network environment. The router config is probably about as 'default' as it can be...nothing exotic or advanced. The router has been a champ for several years, though I came to merlin from dd-wrt just about 10 days ago. I've never seen this behavior before.

Try switching to the 374.43 merlin build. You won't have any wifi problems with that firmware build. Just make sure you clear your nvram after switching firmware builds. You will encounter problems if you don't.

 

[tonsingle]

OK, I've switched to 374.43 merlin and hope that is solves things for the rt-n66u. I did a reset to factory default to clear nvram.

I note that 374.43 is not the latest merlin. Is there reason to avoid the more current versions? 376.48 is the latest if I'm not mistaken. I'm not itching to the latest thing; stability is the priority.

Also - my original post was about the rt-n16, which I had on merlin 376.47. I wonder if it means that it would provide stable wifi at with 374.43?

Thank you for the input.

 

[tonsingle]

Annoyingly the wifi has gone cold; took about an hour and a half.

I installed wi-fi analyzer tool on my android and it shows is the signal strength for the two channels (-19 and -36), 100%, and status not connected. On my phone there does not seem to be any way to get to the alternate screens for that app that the video shows, for example interference.

Well, shoot. Anything else I can try?

 

[john9527]

I have an asus rt-n16, and merlin 376.47. Starting today, the wireless aspect of the router seems to come and go. ... though I came to merlin from dd-wrt just about 10 days ago. I've never seen this behavior before.

The N16 apparently doesn't like moving off of DD-WRT builds with a variety of different symptoms....the procedure in the this post has helped a couple of users and may be worth a try.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=137362&postcount=1

 

[tonsingle]

This has all gone completely downhill.

The rt-n66u droppped wifi after an hour and a half and it never came back. I reverted to the linksys wrt54gs, which worked perfectly last night and this am, and none of our four wireless devices would connect to it. I then went back to the rt-n16 because last time I tried it the only issue was wifi coming and going, and now no device will connect to it either.

All devices, cable modem router pcs and phone have been turned off for minutes at each stage. LAN is ok; internet connect is ok via wire. Only wifi is dead via all three routers. The phones all show the presence of the wifi but won't connect. I renamed the wifi network name just in case and that had no impact.

This is grim...I've wasted so much time on this.

 

[tonsingle]

And then after half an hour wifi started to work. What a bizarre technology.