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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."
Billions of ads + need to check 15 pages to RTFA... and the article is actually a little shallow...
It's true. And what's more, honey badger don't give a sh*t!
The CB App. What's your 20?
Both InSIDDer and Heatmapper are Windows-only, AFAIK. For Linux, there's the awesome Kismet and its cousin for OS X, KisMAC.
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http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/overview.html is totally unavaliable
My wifi was going great... until the neighbours decided to secure their network
. .
Have you tried using NDISwrapper? I haven't tried it myself, but if you are able to use the same driver as in Windows, everything *should* work the same way.
What is the actual use of Analog Video Senders anyway?
Is this what is being advertised for start watching in one room and finish in another from various cable providers?
I note that back in 2009 when a dimilar story was posted it was baby monitors that were taking the blame, even tho video senders were mentioned back then as well.
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ditto. take a fluorescent bulb to microwave and shut off light sources. If the bulb starts to glow replace the microwave.
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.
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Nothing in this story talks about Linux.
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Why don't people talk more about using a wire to an access point to get the wireless where you want it ?
Because of the difficulty of stringing wires thru finished construction, especially when you rent.
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I knew that goldfish was up to something!
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!
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
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I'm not sure about how it works in the standard US setup, but here in the UK if you want more than basic OTA broadcast reception you'll have a set-top-box - either cable decoder, or sat decoder. That's fine for watching in one room, but how do you watch those channels in another? One way is to rent a second STB, which means lots of money plus pulling new cable through the walls. The other is a TV sender. Takes the STB output, transmits it, reciever in another room gets them and outputs to TV. Only drawback is you can't change the channel remotely, and some will even do that by transmitting the IR signal the other way over radio.
They used to work by just transmitting an analog TV signal that any TV in range could pick up with a loop antenna, but those were banned years ago due to interference issues (And, according to rumor, a few incidents of pornography ending up on the neighbour's TV). The new ones operate up in 2.4GHz band, killing wireless networks.
What's killing your Wi-Fi? Or rather, who? *maniacal laughter*
Mini Portable Signal Jammer (Wi-Fi/GPS)
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Well, I used mine to connect the computer at one end of the (large) living room to the TV at the other end. The device I'm talking about does nothing more advanced than transmit a composite video signal from one point to another, wirelessly.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
Nachos
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Mod parent up interesting. I knew that light bulbs light up in the microwave, but I never put it together so you could test leaking microwaves with it.
Also if the microwave is leaking hard, the light bulb may explode (as if you put it in the microwave), but this takes a lot of energy or time, so turn it off immediately when a positive leak test result is found.
Go 5GHz with WPA2 and 802.11n -- you'll have great performance until all your neighbours do the same.
Go wired (gigabit) when you can -- that's faster and more secure.
If you're forced to run on 2.4, don't expect great things in crowded (spectrum) areas. Do spectrum scans, and if you can't work with one of the non-overlapping 2.4GHz channels (1,6,11), and can't use a directional antenna (you can build your own corner reflector or parabolic reflector for under $1) try 3 or 8 and don't worry about HT (high throughput) datarates.
Take up arc welding as a hobby.
Your microwave should not leak any signals/radiation... The inside of a microwave is basically a faraday cage (look at the metal mesh which runs through the glass on a typical microwave door).
If it does leak radiation, then its faulty and you really should get it repaired or replaced ASAP as it can be quite dangerous (wifi cards are typically under 1 watt of power, a microwave could be up to 1300 watts and the full force of one will cook you quite quickly).
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Ahh, but what frequency is your Wi-Fi? (Is it 802.11A, 802.11G or 802.11N?) Makes a HUGE difference.
Get an STB which supports streaming over IP such as a dreambox or a custom built linux box...
Then you have a choice, ethernet, powerline adapters, wifi (still using 2.4ghz but in a cleaner way) etc. You can change the channel remotely on them too.
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You mean something like this?
I have a friend who works at a large bakery. They use big microwave ovens to make cookies. One of his favorite tricks, before all glass was banned from the floor, was carry a fluorescent tube around near the ovens to scare the new guy. I guess they light up pretty brilliantly. :)
Kid-proof tablet..
put the cell phone in the microwave, close the door, if you call and it rings, u have a leak
another trick on smartphone is to install some kind of wifi analyzer and put it in microwave, close the door and watch signal strength
Once my daughter goes to sleep and my wife turns this bad boy on, my wireless network totally falls apart.
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Seems quite common, I work in IT and now and again I get asked do you know why my wiresless network is so crap and a lot of the times they've just had a baby.
In my carefully controlled laboratory (the basement of my parent's house), I decided to try things that would enhance the wireless connectivity. "Scientists" tend to only focus on the negative. Who wants to read something that very craftily calls us idiots? Summary of article the article I didn't read: "Want better wireless? Get rid of the microwave, dumb ass!"
I'm going to write a paper. But my parents want me to clean up the basement first. I don't feel like it ...... so its going to take a while. :)
In writing this more positive paper, I felt gold dust would be the best stuff to sprinkle in the air to enhance wireless signals. After all, this stuff works *MIRACLES* for stereo cables and computer cables. Why not wireless signals?
So I installed some fans in the basement to blow the gold dust around while testing my wireless network. I tried 3 different gold samples. 1) Gold bought from Dollar Store. 2) Gold bought from Pawn Shop. 3) Gold extracted from Monster Cables.
Total cost of materials (gold): $2000*. Acquiring gold from the first two sources was much cheaper than the 3rd (see Marketing Materials as reference).
I'm not going to bore you with the methodology. "What was the purity of the samples?", you might ask. I trust I'm getting 100% Gold from all my sources. They told me it is.
Suffice it to say, my paper will conclude (I'm not done looking at most if of the results just yet and don't think I need to) that sprinkling gold dust in the air boosted wireless signals up to 2 x 10 ^ 3 % (this is a scientific study so I must use scientific notation!). I'll leave the reader to conclude which of the 3 sources resulted in the best results. Frankly, I lost track.
xbox 360 controllers.
ps3 controllers.
bluetooth.
electrical motors for ceiling fans.
cordless phones in the 2.4Ghz range.
cheap RC cars/planes/helicopters.
Your paper shredder, while it's running.
your 5 neighbors' wifis all on channel 6.
CFL bulbs. (They tend to absorb radio signals.)
All of these will interfere with wifi. Perhaps you should switch to 5Ghz 802.11N
They're using their grammar skills there.
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. :)
even people can block wifi, my router is next to a desktop in the office at the front of the house, normally i get about 75% signal strength, when someone is sitting at that desk it drops down to about 55% to 60% and i notice the slowdown...
this router has a rubber ducky antenna so while searching for a way to improve my signal quality i found this and it really does work, now when someone is sitting at the office desk near the router it does not weaken the signal and the overall signal averages about 85% solid without problems
build one of these out of heavy paper like card stock or similar (cereal box cardboard) and aluminum foil http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Oh, I don't know, I've never had a wifi based machine that would not work under linux.
Occasionally I've had to load ndiswrapper, but in the end every one of them worked.
Lately most distros figure this out by themselves, and load what ever is necessary, fetch the firmware and do the whole
nine yards.
Still, windows-centric drivers are manufacturer problem, not just a linux problem, and one that even they are starting to realize
is not going to cut it going forward.
On the other hand, I've actually been forced to swap out mini-pci cards in windows machines to
get to one that would handle WPA2.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The shielding of a microwave is designed to prevent it from cooking you, not to block the tiny bit of leakage that interferes with wifi
A friend was having a problem trying to get wireless working on his Linux laptop. Turns out the ssb module had to be blacklisted as it would interfere with the wireless system. He could do it (manually messing around with the necessary .conf file), but it's still a joke and completely demolishes the argument that Linux is ready for the desktop.
One swallow does not a summer make.
I've had similar odd driver related problems problems with windows machines.
Does that "complete demolish" the argument that windows is ready for the desktop?
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have one with 2 wireless speakers for the back channels.... I loved it while i was oblivious to the fact that it kill wifi in a 3ft radius!
...until i tried to play online on the wii.
Now i have to choose if I want 5.1 audio or multiplayer.
It really depends on the age and quality of the microwave oven. I have a client that has a really old beast of a microwave that is pre-1980's old. I have a tool on my laptop to analyze the 2.4Ghz band and I could see that some channels would be obliterated with noise when the microwave was on. This just meant assigning the access points to channels least effected by the noise. In newer and/or higher grade routers, the auto-select feature should pick out a good channel so this would be a non-issue anyway.
I Cater to the Needs of Stupid People. - from a coffee mug Christmas gift
... mismatched devices!
You would not believe how many people "upgrade" their broadband to 20+ Mbit/sec service and then complain that their computer is still only getting 1-3Mbit/sec speeds. A lot of them don't realize that the older 802.11 devices can significant reduce the performance of a modern wireless network.
Most 802.11b devices (which are still in use today) usually top out at around 10-11Mbit/sec, and that's under perfect conditions. If you start adding multiple users, competing networks and outside interference, things get out of hand pretty quick.
Here's a list of things to look for in examining your wireless network for performance issues:
- Replace the router.
If you're router is over 3 years old, it might be time to replace it. Especially if it's an older 802.11a/b model. The really old 802.11 devices, like Apple's original AirPort base station, have a lot of problems working correctly when they encounter other networks within their own service range. This can result in dropped or spotty connections and overall losses in bandwidth. Many of these first generation wireless network devices barely worked, but they worked well enough for the few people that could afford them. Most of these devices have since been trashed for more recent models either because they started failing under the weight of other networks or simply died from various flaws or age.
- Update the firmware.
Many wireless devices have firmware chips on them that can be upgraded through software. This can help weed out networking issues that might be caused by buggy firmware, or may add enhanced features that can help your device work better under heavier loads from competing networks, interference, multiple users and various security issues.
- upgrade all client-end networking hardware at the same time.
When putting a wireless network together, or upgrading an existing one, make sure your client devices use similar configurations. (Or identical, if possible...) A single, poorly configured client device can significantly impact your wireless network's performance. By making the network devices functionally similar to each other, the simpler it will be to put together an efficient network setup. For example, if you have a network consisting of only 802.11g devices and set up a router to only accept 802.11g connections, it'll run at around 54Mbit/sec. But, if you have a network consisting of random 802.11 devices and a router that will support several protocols going back to 802.11b, the network will default to using the slowest, most common protocol available (802.11b) and will force all connected clients to run at that speed (11Mbit/sec), regardless of each client's individual configuration. That bandwidth is then divided by every connection, making then network seem much slower than it is. By keeping the client and router hardware similarly configured, the network speeds are less likely to suffer. Your maximum network performance is limited only by the hardware you use to build it.
- Secure your network.
Make sure your network hardware is secure on both the router and client end. Set up your router to use the most powerful encryption protocols it supports and utilize MAC address detection to identify each piece of hardware on the network, so you can ensure no one outside of your client list can access your network. Also, don't use DHCP to assign IP addresses. Manually configure each client, so they have a static IP. Finally, disable SSID broadcasting. This will reduce the likelihood of a war-driver finding your network and tagging it for others to find.
- Use the latest available network protocols.
Using protocols like 802.11g or 802.11n may help to significantly improve your network speeds over older ones, but may also offer some added flexibility. Unlike the older 802.11b/a protocols, some of the newer protocols aren't limited to one broadcast frequency (2.4GHz). While the broadcast frequency of your wireless hardware has relatively little to do with your netw
8==8 Bones 8==8