Wireless Network Not Working

Professor Snugglesworth

It seems every couple of years I am subjected to a nightmare of a computer issue. Unexpectedly and inexplicably today, my wireless service stopped working.

To be more specific, the wireless light on my router (Netgear) was a solid orange, and no wireless devices could connect to it. My desktop, when connected directly to it, can open up some pages but not others (forums especially would not work, leading to server timeouts). When my desktop is plugged directly to the modem itself, it works fine, I can do everything. The issue seems to primarily be the wireless portion of my internet.

My ISP (Comcast) swears up and down that it's got nothing to do with them, even though last week they had to send a tech over to do tech stuff (as well as suggest to me to replace my out-of-date modem, which I did). The timing seems suspicious, but it does make sense: if the fault was on their end, I couldn't get internet period.

Several hours of factory resets and other nonsense, the Netgear people claimed my router was faulty and had to be replaced. So I did so, coming back to Best Buy just an hour later with a newer and (allegedly) better router. Guess what, same issue: a solid orange light and no ability whatsoever to access the Netgear Genie page (192.168.1.1). The help desk ran me through the same steps again, long story short I've thrown away nine hours into this shit.

So I'm completely stumped. The only options left are to return the router and get a non-Netgear brand, or hound Comcast to send another guy over. I'll probably do both, but I'm also making this thread to see if this awesome community can solve what several trained and certified tech people could not (no offense to anyone here with a similar job; I spent a whole 9 hours today trying to solve this issue so brain not gud naow).

PedroAsani

If you can't get to the Genie page through a wired connection (and you are using the correct IP), the router is bad. Since you swapped it once, it sounds like that one has a similar problem.

Take it back, and get a new one from the shelves. Open it in the store, use your phone or laptop to test it. Problems, grab another. You are only testing the ability to get a wireless connection and the Genie page at this point.

When you get home, you are going to have to talk to Comcast about getting them to configure things on their end. Yes, it sucks, but I did it after about an hour.

Professor Snugglesworth

Solid advice. I'll run it by the Geek Squad and make sure they test it out before letting me walk home with it. If it's still not working, I'm going to bitch to Comcast to send someone over, because it has to be something on their end.

I literally made no changes to my house's connection beyond swapping the old modem with the new one.

LD50

If you can connect to the internet fine by directly connecting to the modem, then it's not something they'll be able to fix since everything on their end is working. If you're having trouble even connecting to the router's configuration page then there's most definitely something wrong with the router.

Just to make sure, have you tried getting to the config page via 192.168.0.1? Some routers use that instead.

Professor Snugglesworth

Since I'll have to wait for the store to open, I'm open to router suggestions in the meantime.

Two-story house, lots of devices, including several that stream (Apple TVs, consoles, etc). Don't want something unnecessarily expensive, but a good middle ground budget and performance wise.

PedroAsani

Professor Snugglesworth wrote: »

Since I'll have to wait for the store to open, I'm open to router suggestions in the meantime.

Two-story house, lots of devices, including several that stream (Apple TVs, consoles, etc). Don't want something unnecessarily expensive, but a good middle ground budget and performance wise.

Mine is a Netgear (I think N900) WNDR4500v2. Has been fine for six months.

LD50

http://www.amazon.com/RT-N16-Wireless-N-Maximum-Performance-single/dp/B00387G6R8/ref=sr_1_12?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1407484984&sr=1-12&keywords=asus+routers+wireless

This is a pretty good router. It's a little on the expensive side but it has a pretty decent wireless broadcast.

http://www.amazon.com/RT-N66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-N900-Gigabit-Router/dp/B006QB1RPY/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1407484984&sr=1-1&keywords=asus+routers+wireless

This is a bit of a step up, but it's also more expensive.

Professor Snugglesworth

After over 4 hours of their on-phone customer service and (according to them) two faulty routers I really don't want to deal with Netgear anymore.

I'll look into the ASUS brand.

Professor Snugglesworth

Settled on Linksys per the Best Buy rep's recommendation: http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-Wireless-Dual-Band-Gigabit-Anywhere/dp/B00KF93DMI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407543813&sr=8-1&keywords=linksys+ac1200+

The good news is that I can at least access the router's page (192.168.1.1), whereas I couldn't with Linksys. Bad news is that I still can't get an internet connection, with the page indicating as such.

Going to call Linksys about this, but after dinner. If they can't resolve it then I'm going to hound Comcast to send a guy over pronto, because there can't possibly be any other culprit.

Professor Snugglesworth

It seems I've finally solved the issue, and it's a dumber solution than I imagined. According to one random Google search out of a dozen, one of the things I could try is unplug my modem completely, then plug the power cord in first, wait a couple minutes, then plug in the ethernet cable that links the modem to the router. Supposedly by doing this, it would force the modem to use the ip configurations of the router...or vice versa, I dunno.

Anyway, everything seems to be working now...well, almost. This router is a dual band, which means it has wireless network connections, 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz. Based on what I've read, 2.4 offers a wider range signal, but 5 ghz offers faster speed at a shorter distance.

By that logic, anything that's downstairs would benefit best from the 2.4 option, but I couldn't get the downstairs Apple TV to stream anything until I switched it to 5 ghz. I'm wondering what the deal is and if I should just have everything connect to 5 ghz. I also set the channel to 11 for the 2.4 and the channel for 5 to 165, based on recommendation.

My current speed for my connected desktop using the router's speed test is 53.30 for download, 11.62 for upload.

PedroAsani

Cycle through the channels for each frequency. Use the best one you can find. The recommendations are not always right.

Pantshandshake

And to echo something I learned from this very forum not too long ago, get you some inSSIDer (http://www.inssider.com/) and do a network survey. The 2.4 band is hilariously crowded, and this will show you what wireless devices are using what channels around you. In theory, you can find a spot not being used. In practice, you'll probably have an asshat of a neighbor like I have, who is apparently running 3 routers at once and taking up literally the entire 2.4 band.

Professor Snugglesworth

I can't say things are all hunky-dory now; I've had a few weird bouts here and there where things were slowish (for instance, a Google search would take longer than usual), and today I had the same problem where none of the wireless connections would work. This was solved the exact same way: unplug the modem, then plug in the cable linking the modem to the router last after turning it on.

I'm going to demand Comcast send someone over, but I'm also going to research other internet providers to see if I can convince my family to subscribe to someone else. These frequent internet issues should not be the norm according to people I've talked to. I'm all for opinions on which providers offer the best internet service.

The one we're using now is Comcast Blast! (with an !): http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Increases-Download-Speeds-to-105Mbps-For-Blast-Internet-Service-Customers/#!bAGHFN

Jebus314

Professor Snugglesworth wrote: »

I can't say things are all hunky-dory now; I've had a few weird bouts here and there where things were slowish (for instance, a Google search would take longer than usual), and today I had the same problem where none of the wireless connections would work. This was solved the exact same way: unplug the modem, then plug in the cable linking the modem to the router last after turning it on.

I'm going to demand Comcast send someone over, but I'm also going to research other internet providers to see if I can convince my family to subscribe to someone else. These frequent internet issues should not be the norm according to people I've talked to. I'm all for opinions on which providers offer the best internet service.

The one we're using now is Comcast Blast! (with an !): http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Increases-Download-Speeds-to-105Mbps-For-Blast-Internet-Service-Customers/#!bAGHFN

Nothing wrong with asking a comcast tech to come out, but in my experience they tend to be hit or miss.

If plugging your laptop straight into the modem still gives you access to the internet and power cycling the modem and router gets everything running again you might be having problems with the modem assigning an IP address to specific MAC addresses. I'm don't know much about how that works but if you can plug your pc into the modem and it works, try cloning your pc's mac address on the router.

You can find your pc's mac address by opening cmd and typing "ipconfig /all", which will give a bunch of stuff including the MAC address which is labeled "Physical Address" and should be 12 numbers/letters. Your router should have a mac address cloning option somewhere where you can put in that number to make the modem think your router and the working PC are the same machine. Worth a shot anyway.

Inquisitor77

I would recommend you put any device that can handle it on the 5 GHz band, just to avoid any potential congestion issues in the future (even if you aren't running into any now). The 2.4 GHz band is notorious for being used by devices that really shouldn't be anywhere near it, including Bluetooth stuff. And if you are in an urban or crowded environment, good luck getting a channel that isn't already being used by 5 other people including the Starbucks across the street.

If you are setting up a large space like a house, then sometimes your wireless connection can just plain not work in some areas, especially if there are a lot of pillars, floors, angled walls, etc. etc. etc. At that point, it might be worth exploring getting a wireless bridge or even using something like a power-line adapter for some areas.

Professor Snugglesworth

Tried the MAC cloning option, couldn't get a connection even when directly connected, so I ditched that. Had a Comcast guy stop over, but the most he could do was make a few minor tweaks to the router and suggested I try different channels, as stated here.

Is there a free program that can tell me how crowded each channel is? Beyond that I'm out of options. It's been working fine for me, but based on feedback from the other family members it's been slightly hit-or-miss, not as good as it used to be.

Inquisitor77

Professor Snugglesworth wrote: »

Tried the MAC cloning option, couldn't get a connection even when directly connected, so I ditched that. Had a Comcast guy stop over, but the most he could do was make a few minor tweaks to the router and suggested I try different channels, as stated here.

Is there a free program that can tell me how crowded each channel is? Beyond that I'm out of options. It's been working fine for me, but based on feedback from the other family members it's been slightly hit-or-miss, not as good as it used to be.

If you have an Android phone/tablet, I recommend getting the WiFi Analyzer app. It's not perfect but it works very well for a free app. Just be sure to let it run for a period of time (a minute or two) and not just one-and-done it. Signal strength goes up and down pretty frequently, so sometimes a channel will supposedly be clear only to be overwhelmed by a single source 90% of the time in short bursts.

Most routers also come with their own analyzer apps bundled with the firmware as well. Linksys is a good brand, I would be surprised if there wasn't something you could use just by hooking up a laptop and logging into the router directly.

PedroAsani

The problem when trying to diagnose channel crowding is that each device has it's own sensitivity to it. A weak competitor may cause no problem for most devices, but a particularly sensitive one will act as if the sky is falling.

The best option is to simply cycle through each channel and test the results from all devices. Do it at varying times of day, just in case the interference is intermittent.

Professor Snugglesworth

The one device causing me the most aggravation out of anything is my mom's laptop, especially because it's Windows 8, which I largely avoid and have little experience with.

Is there some special configuration I need to do to make it work?

Pantshandshake

Pantshandshake wrote: »

And to echo something I learned from this very forum not too long ago, get you some inSSIDer (http://www.inssider.com/) and do a network survey. The 2.4 band is hilariously crowded, and this will show you what wireless devices are using what channels around you. In theory, you can find a spot not being used. In practice, you'll probably have an asshat of a neighbor like I have, who is apparently running 3 routers at once and taking up literally the entire 2.4 band.

This is free, though I guess if you can't get a connection, it might be out.

PedroAsani

It isn't the software, but the hardware. Cycling is the quickest way.

Dr. Frenchenstein

i have to power cycle my router every once in a while, when connectivity drops. i rarely have to cycle the modem though. it's really annoying, and i don't know what i'm doing to cause it, but it's an easy enough fix (and i know very little about networking) to try and accurately diagnose the problem. i have the 2.4/5 dual band as well, i don't think i've bothered to try and get anything to connect on the 5 band.

The wireless adapter on my Asus windows 8 laptop used to frequently shit the bed, and i'd have to disable/reenable that to get it to connect. try that on your mom's laptop.

Professor Snugglesworth

I think my problems have been taken care of. I returned the Linksys AC1200 and got a 1600 instead, at the request of a Best Buy employee. It's been a week and no one is reporting any problems with the wireless signal or speed, so that seemed to do the trick.

I also changed the channel to 9, just randomly, and that seems to have improved things further. Just glad I finally got this mess sorted.

AngelHedgie

Professor Snugglesworth wrote: »

I think my problems have been taken care of. I returned the Linksys AC1200 and got a 1600 instead, at the request of a Best Buy employee. It's been a week and no one is reporting any problems with the wireless signal or speed, so that seemed to do the trick.

I also changed the channel to 9, just randomly, and that seems to have improved things further. Just glad I finally got this mess sorted.

Actually, 9 is a bad choice for a channel, because of how the channels divvy up the bandwidth. It's better to stick with 1, 7, or 14.