New Talk Talk router not working correctly

[NathanGray]

A little while ago we were sent a replacement router from talk talk because ours was working incorrectly and had a problem with it.

However this new router came in the box with its face plate off? I thought nothing of it, was able to clip it back in place and everything seemed fine.

Recently it's been acting extremely irregularly. It's been disconnecting us from the internet and everyone connected to the WiFi loses signal for a split moment before being reconnected.

However when it does this the light on the router is bright white saying that it is connected.

This is extremely upsetting to me and my family as for tasks such as gaming and streaming it can knock us off it for a split second and ruin it.

I'm not sure what the cause could be but iv already tried restarting it several times with a 20 minute restart and it hasn't done anything and goes back to normal after a day or so.

Our line is completely alright as we have had around 3 engineer visits or more to have them checked out and optimized.

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

Glad this has sorted itself.

Regards,

Karl. 

[NathanGray]

It seems to weirdly sorted itself out.

It doesn't normally go for 2 days without disconnecting at all, I did reseat the ADSL cable in the router which looked a bit janky and did restart it again.

But I can't imagine that could of actually been the thing to do something to it to fix it.

[Skynet_TX]

If the router LED remains solid white then it is probably not related to the external works, as if that had caused any issues with your line you would likely see the router actually drop connection (LED going out, then flashing amber, then amber/white), and if that happened you would be waiting for a minute or more for it to reconnect again. If your LED remains solid white, and your disconnections are just for seconds then it is more likely an issue with your router or Wi-Fi environment.

Yeah, see how things go over the weekend, and hopefully the support team will be able to respond to this post on Monday to offer more help. Enjoy the revision !.

[NathanGray]

Thanks for the help, I'll definitely look into doing that probably when I am more rested.

For now I'm gonna let it ride out until Monday and see what it does. 

Weirdly the problem seems to go away for around a day after I have restarted the router by turning it off for 20 minutes. So I'll have to see tomorrow if it disconnects.

We have had work done in the area with fibre line installation all over our area. So that may also be interfering maybe?

Not sure honestly, I'll just have to see how things go

[Skynet_TX]

One way to force devices that support both bands to specifically use one of the bands is to give each of the bands a different Wi-Fi network name (SSID), this would then mean a device that supports both bands would see each of the Wi-Fi networks separately, and you could choose which one you wanted to connect to. If you wanted to try that, the instructions on how to do that can be found here.

If you tried this and found that only one of the bands was dropping, and devices connected to the other band were ok, then Wi-Fi interference would be the most likely cause. If both bands are dropping then a router issue is more likely.

But as I say, the support team here will be back on Monday and will be able to check your router and help further.

[NathanGray]

Well that's good to know at least.

[NathanGray]

It's alright, I'm currently studying computer science and have a btec in IT. So I can sorta follow along with what you are saying and I heavily appreciate the help.

I wish I could tell you if I knew both the bands were disconnecting at the same time, but everything I use is in the same room as the router other than my computer.

I would assume they automatically connect to the 5ghz band of the WiFi. But I'm pretty sure my phone connects to the 2.4ghz band from what I have checked.

It also drops connection at the same time as my Xbox. The only way iv actually been able to track it properly and when it goes off is- funnily enough when it disconnects me from the online service off there.

I look down at my phone to notice the WiFi symbol isn't there like normal, but the router light is still white.

Then after a couple of seconds it comes back on like nothing happened- this wouldn't be such an annoying problem if I didn't have things I needed to be connected to with a stable connection if you know what I mean.

Sorry if I'm not very clear I'm very tired, revising for my A level exams and having to deal with this has not been helping my stress levels.

[Skynet_TX]

Ok, so SG4K100136 is the latest firmware, I thought this version was meant to resolve many of the DNS related issues !, but as I say, it is unlikely that is the root cause of your problem anyway.

[NathanGray]

That would be TalkTalk Wi-Fi Hub
version SG4K100136.

Also I appreciate your assistance given the current time.

[Skynet_TX]

Also, one other thing you could check when you are logged into your router, from the initial screen after logging in you could click on 'Manage My Devices', this will show you what devices are connected to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band, and what devices are connected to your 5GHz Wi-Fi band.

If you do happen to have some devices that use one band, and some devices that use the other, can you confirm if devices that use the different bands both drop their connection at the same time, as if this is the case this may be more of an indication of a fault with the router, as if you were suffering from Wi-Fi interference, or channel issues, it would not tend to affect both Wi-Fi bands in the same way at the same time.

Be aware that most modern devices can connect to either band, they would tend to connect to 5GHz when they were close to the router, and 2.4GHz when they were further away, but some devices only support 2.4GHz and so could only ever connect to that band.

I realise this is all getting a bit techie !!, the support team here will be able to help more when they are back on Monday, if they did think this might be a Wi-Fi Optimisation issue they could disable that for you, if they thought it might be a router fault they could arrange a replacement router for you.

[Skynet_TX]

DNS errors would not usually cause brief drops of connection like you are seeing, however if you are seeing lots of DNS errors this may indicate you are not on the latest version of firmware, if you log back out of the router then on the login screen at http://192.168.1.1/ what 'version' does it show near the bottom of the screen, it will start with SG4K.

[NathanGray]

Iv managed to navigate to the matienence page to check the log.

I don't seem to see anything like that. The only error I have is DNS name resolution failure.

Is this something that could be causing a problem?

Sorry I'm not too familiar with these things.

[Skynet_TX]

Hi @NathanGray,

If you have the Sagemcom then yes, 'Wi-Fi Optimisation' could potentially be causing this. If you have a busy Wi-Fi environment, i.e. many neighbours with Wi-Fi routers broadcasting signals that are also visible in your home, then this could potentially cause your router to keep hopping between channels to try to find a less congested channel, when this hopping happens it can cause your devices to briefly lose connection and reconnect (on the new channel).

The support team here on the community can disable Wi-Fi Optimisation for you if you would like them to. One way you may be able to see if it really is Wi-Fi Optimisation that is causing this would be to go to http://192.168.1.1/ and log into your router (router login details on the label on the back of the router, underneath the pull out plastic card).

You could then check the log for your router by going to :

See Internet Settings > Manage Advanced Settings > 'Continue' on pop up message > TalkTalk Wi-Fi Hub > 'Maintenance' Tab > Logs

The 'Severity' option will allow you to filter the amount of detail visible in the log, choosing 'Debug or lower' will show all of the log activity.

Entries that say something like this would indicate Wi-Fi channel hopping :

Channel: (11/1) Channel Hopping initiated/Manually initiated

So if you see entries like that in your log, around the times you have the problem, then that may well indicate that the Wi-Fi Optimisation feature is the culprit.

[NathanGray]

Unfortunately I don't have anything I can connect it up to with a ethernet cable.

As I don't have any devices that requires one. It also only drops connection to all devices every occasion 2-3 hours so to check if it effects that would be very tedious and impractical.

My router is also the sagecom model.

Iv heard before people having to ask for the automatic channel changing on the router to be turned off? 

Do you think that may be a problem? 

The reason why I'm hesitant on it being any thing else but a faulty router is because it came in the package without its face plate on and the copper panel exposed. 

I was able to click it back on but it was very difficult and I have no idea wether the internals were also harmed(By this I mean by shipping)

[Skynet_TX]

Hi @NathanGray,

Do you have any devices connected to the router 'wired', if so do they lose connection too ?

What model of router do you have, the Huawei or the Sagemcom ?