What's Killing Your Wi-Fi?

Barence writes "PC Pro has taken an in-depth look at Wi-Fi and the factors that can cause connections to crumble. It dispels some common myths about Wi-Fi problems — such as that neighboring Wi-Fi hotspots are the most common cause of problems, instead of other RF interference from devices such as analogue video senders, microwave ovens and even fish tanks. The feature also highlights free and paid-for tools that can diagnose Wi-Fi issues, such as inSSIDer and Heatmapper, the latter of which maps provides a heatmap of Wi-Fi hotspots in your home or office."

Comments

Re:microwave

[icebike]

I'd have that microwave looked at, because I have no problem streaming video right next to my microwave to a wifi tablet.
Maybe you have a leak? Any appliance store has detectors, most will rent them to you.

Microwave at 50m

[thegarbz]

Research from the Farpoint Group suggests that data throughput can fall by 64% within 25ft of a microwave, and Farpoint analyst Craig Mathias said the firm had even “seen problems at 50m”.

I'm sorry but if this is the case you have far bigger problems with your microwave then simply WiFi interference.

RUN!

Re:Microwave at 50m

[the_raptor]

I thought most Slashdotters had a basic understanding of science? Non-ionising radiation is basically all the same. It doesn't matter if it comes from the magnetron in a microwave oven or your Wi-Fi AP. The only issue as to whether it will cook you is the power you absorb. Microwave ovens tend to run in the range of 500-1000+ watts of power, your AP probably puts out below 5 watts. It doesn't take much to figure out that minor and completely safe levels of leakage from the microwave will heavily interfere with Wi-Fi.

Of course I have actually had RF burns from playing with radios so I am not terrified of non-ionising radiation like luddites are.

Re:Microwave at 50m

[Solandri]

I'm surprised this hasn't been modded up. The FCC limit on omnidirectional broadcasts in the 2.4 GHz band is 1 Watt. Most wireless routers I've seen are 500-750 mW max. They actually self-regulate their power output to use the weakest possible signal and still maintain good throughput. Most microwaves are actually around 1500 Watts. So even if the shielding is 99.9% effective, it's still putting out at least 2-3x more "signal" than your router, probably a lot more. It's simple enough to demonstrate. Start copying a large file over wireless with something like Teracopy (which gives instantaneous MB/sec). Then turn on your microwave. Throughput will plummet.

What is killing my wifi

[hackus]

Crap firmware and products.

That is what is killing my wifi.

I would also like to add:

1) Wall Street fascist pig CEO types who need that 5th mansion and stupid Board directors and shareholders who let him get away with it while the companies network infrastructure rots to hell.

That doesn't help my wifi either.

2) Closed proprietary crap hardware primarily by CISCO that makes it impossible to produce decent firmware via a 3rd party even after you bought the damn thing.

Apparently in a fascist system you really don't get to own anything you buy and can go to jail if you try and figure out how it works or make your own improvements.

Poor WRT guys, how they must suffer. Even though they work really hard, their firmware still sucks because the binary blobs they get with the radios suck it and my Wireless N router (WRT600N) still, has to auto reboot every 24 hours or it just plain stops working.

3) Finally I would like to thank all of the fascist members in Congress for creating laws that pretty much guarantees our wifi will suck.on a country wide basis, insuring intellectual property nonsense will continue to make wifi blow.

-Hack

Re:What is killing my wifi

[VortexCortex]

Consumer-grade wireless is shit. We use Cisco 1130 AGs and they are the shit.
[...]
they are fucking rock solid. However, they cost like $600.

1. Cosumer = shit. Commercial = the shit. o_O Same "shit" much?

2. So what you're saying is that Cisco distances itself from the intentionally crippled consumer hardware via slapping the name Linksys on it, so that when someone buys the slightly better non-crippled hardware they can charge $600 for it -- do you really think that it's 10,000% (Ten Thousand Percent!?) better than the consumer grade device? -- or, would you agree that it's arbitrary price inflation based on pretty much the same design?

3. Why don't they just make good routers across the board, it would lower their cost to manufacture esp. in volume -- Oh, right, profit margins, never mind.

I think we've Identified the culprits. WiFi sucks because the manufacturers want it to suck. Guess what? A dime bag of cocaine, or a pirated copy of Windows is cheap too -- It's when you become a Pro at snorting lines or using Windows or running a network that the price becomes prohibitively expensive... At least with the drugs, when you "go pro" the price may get cheaper the more you use.

Make no mistake, consumer grade WiFi is marginally adequate expressly because it can be. People get used to the convenience of WiFi at home, but when they want to take it to work: Business can not afford to have flaky WiFi. Ergo the ten thousand percent price hike per unit -- You're already hooked -- if you want the clean stuff not cut with rat poison, baking soda, faulty capacitors, overheating chips, and weak antenna coils (so that you can use more like a pro and get a pure, reliable WiFi-high without O.D.ing) you'll have to pay big time.

Re:Baby monitor kills mine

[green1]

I work as a service tech for a local telco, I frequently go out to fix people's wireless when they can't figure out what's wrong, baby monitors and other people's wifi do kill the signal, but usually not badly enough to be a major problem, simply changing the channel on the AP or moving the equipment a few feet usually solves it.
Microwave ovens are a big deal, but usually only in close proximity to them, or if it is directly between the computer and the AP.

What has always amazed me more is how badly various other household appliances can affect networks, and I'm not just talking wireless either, I've had cases where a hand mixer in the next room was able to make streaming video unwatchable on an ethernet cabled computer. And a customer who watched streaming video while on the treadmill required a lot of creative work to get a signal through even on ethernet. (turns out the problem was actually interference on the power line side of things, a UPS on the computer and moving the treadmill to a circuit on the other half of the electrical panel eventually solved it)

Basically, consumer gear is garbage, everything from hand mixers and treadmills to computers and routers. sometimes you can work around it, sometimes you just can't.

Network Down

[rmccoy]

Back in the day...

When WiFi was just starting to get rolled out in most businesses, I had set up a multi access-point wireless network that had worked really well for about five months. Then, with no known changes, it started dying across the entire building almost every afternoon about the same time.

I worked with the building maintenance staff to try to find any electrical gear that might be starting up about that time with no luck. Finally, because the executives loved their wireless, I had to buy a spectrum analyser to try to track down the problem. I kept it on my desk until the next time we had an outage and started following the high amplitude broadband noise that had suddenly appeared.

The directional antenna led me straight to the kid that worked in the mailroom who had his feed up on the desk talking into a wireless phone. I pulled the plug on it and the noise stopped, the network reappeared. He'd brought in a consumer wireless phone so he could talk to his girlfriend while he moved around the mailroom sorting mail. I'm surprised his hair wasn't smoking with the signal the thing was emitting.

I took it away from him and everyone, except maybe his girlfriend, was happy. :)