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Ask Slashdot: Why Does Wireless Gear Degrade Over Time?
acer123 writes "Lately I have replaced several home wireless routers because the signal strength has been found to be degraded. These devices, when new (2+ years ago) would cover an entire house. Over the years, the strength seems to decrease to a point where it might only cover one or two rooms. Of the three that I have replaced for friends, I have not found a common brand, age, etc. It just seems that after time, the signal strength decreases. I know that routers are cheap and easy to replace but I'm curious what actually causes this. I would have assumed that the components would either work or not work; we would either have a full signal or have no signal. I am not an electrical engineer and I can't find the answer online so I'm reaching out to you. Can someone explain how a transmitter can slowly go bad?"
As all of your neighbors add wireless routers, the noise floor goes up, and the usable signal goes down, even though the signal strength is the same.
built in failure. bow to your corporate masters and go consume.
Over 3 years I'd imagine a greater density of wifi devices all sharing the same spectrum to have appeared. Perhaps the signal level is the same, but the noise floor has increased substantially, degrading performance.
This is a hypothesis based on peripheral involvement with analog and digital RF at 0.5 and 1.5 GHz for twenty years.
AFAIK, the output stage of anything broadcasting above about 2 GHz has to be analog, with the lower frequency signal mixed into a carrier at the higher frequency. Digital synthesizers and chips which can deal with 1.5 GHz directly are still very expensive and are unlikely to be used in the consumer routers. So the final output stage is likely an analog RF transistor.
Analog transistors change characteristics with age at elevated temperature, where elevated is anything over 20C. Implanted ions diffuse with time and temperature, changing junction characteristics. The small structures required by high frequencies are more sensitive to such things.
The loss in performance could be due to the solder between components (mostly between the antenna and circuit board) is degrading overtime (this happen a lot with industrial devices), also the diferents components as capacitor and resistor could be wearing out too.
It's by design. Especially if those devices are marketed for the American market. Wanna know what else is designed to fail after a certain set time?
Well, Microwave ovens, cars, especially those from one once big American car company, that recieved millions in bailout cash under this president.
In industry, it's called Planned Obsolescence, and Americans are pioneers.
Here's a write-up about it.
Capitalism at its best!
Too stupid? Actually most people aren't 'stupid', it's just that most of the population don't live and breathe IT issues. An equally narrow-minded, self-absorbed mom in a typical household would also think you're stupid because you can't cook as well as she can.
When you grow up and leave your parent's basement, here's a tip -- try to be more diplomatic and really try to understand society as a whole. Not everyone knows what you do and conversely you're not stupid because you don't have the various skill-sets of everyone around you. Some day soon you'll be out in the job market and when that happens you won't score points in any job interview by stating how everyone else is stupid because you know something like how to change channels on your wireless router and they don't.
Some idiot thought it was cheaper to spend $1 less on caps than the cost for customers calling tech support repeatedly for flakey performance.
A lot of tech companies have bean counters in charge, except they don't even know much about beans.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire