WIFI fades from 37MBPS to next to nothing in about an hour...

[MichaelEH]

Speed, WIF

In a small flat, I am operating a Sage m com Fast 5364-3T8 wireless router, in the kitchen where the phone line socket is and hard wired to it is my TV powerline adaptor, which was replaced new last September. Wirelessly I use my laptop (mac book pro) in my bedroom two (small) rooms away.

My problem is with my WIFI signal. Every since around the time that the TV powerline was replaced I have been having problems with the WIFI signal fading down to effectively nothing...at which point I cannot even open an email or a web page...on my laptop. I rely on my WIFI to make a quick response to work requests in direct competition with others and so I need my WIFI to be up to speed...

After several months of tests resetting things in the router and line (the line between me and the exchange is fine) and eventually an engineer, it was decided that I had WIFI congestion due to my neighbours...a WIFI booster was prescribed and eventually I found the right spot for it, using my mobile phone to tell me when the signal was strongest and weakest... So, from January this year I had WIFI working fine again, getting top (37mbps) speeds...but then about two weeks ago the WIFI signal started dropping out again and this time I found that it would fade in about an hour or so, but then, if I kept switching on and off my laptop WIFI, and continually reopening the TALKTALK.HELP link to the speed checker, after up an hour of doing this, the WIFI speed would suddenly jump back up to 37mbps and stay there for up to an hour or so, but then die off back to next to nothing...I I have been existing like this for the last three weeks or so... For instance, to pay my council tax and water rates bills the other day - which involved me logging into my bank account and making a 'faster' transfer took over an hour...

Last week I had a visit from a talk talk engineer, who after I showed him what my process was (switching on and off the computer WIFI at the computer desktop and eventually if that did not work, rebooting the router) was immediately sure that I simply needed a second router...and so after a struggle, and several email messages, I succeeded in persuading talk talk to send me one out which I am currently waiting for...maybe that will be a silver bullet and the end to my fading WIFI signal. 

However, all this time I have been, when free, experimenting with all the permutations that could possibly be causing the problem and keeping notes... So, here I wanted to put my evidence down and give someone hopefully, a chance to suggest a fix or some insight into the problem...something that never happens when dealing on the phone with tech people in S.A. or even with the engineers on my property...who are always in a hurry to get away...

My findings:

I am proficient at changing the Frequency of my router now and checking it to see  what channel it is using, within that frequency. And this has to be done at a point when the WIFI is strong(note: it's either 37mbps or next to nothing...). 

1. The booster (Sage m com Fast 266) makes a small difference...boosts the signal from about mid-late 20s without it, to 37.3 - 37.4 MBPS, with down load of 9.5 - once even 10mbps... with it switched on. I have experimented with various positions and now it is outside my bedroom and has line of sight with my laptop.

What is more intriguing is that when operating on 2.4Mhz WIFI from the router, the signal to my laptop, according to my mobile phone, is "excellent" strength right around my laptop (four point scale: poor/fair/good/excellent). Yet I still get the WIFI signal dropping off syndrome over the course of an hour or so...and then have to spend an hour or so continually turning on and off the WIFI at the desktop of my laptop...always the same pattern, I have been doing it for weeks now. 

But then, if I force my WIFI router to work on 5Ghz, but switching off the 2.4Ghz signal (the booster I have worked out is duel band and also swaps to 5Ghz ), I once again get the same pattern...immediately top speed of 37.3mbps which then tails off to nothing over the course of an hour and I then have to go through the on/off switching/speed checking scenario... However...I now find, if I look at my mobile phone next to my laptop, that the mobile phone is showing a "weak" WIFI signal...completely the opposite to when on 2.4Ghz... but the strange thing is that signal strength, as measured on my mobile phone, has absolutely no bearing on the operating of the WIFI to my laptop... Signal strength as measured by my mobile phone can be weak or excellent, and I still get a speed of 37mbps on my laptop which then dies away to nothing as described above. 

Next observation: That the WIFI on my laptop can die away to nothing, but then by clicking on/off to the WIFI on the desktop, if I do it enough, can suddenly bring back the 37mbps signal, albeit for a while, might suggest that there is something in my laptop that needs fixing...?? Yet, this problem has only been happening since last September...when I had the new powerline adaptors...before that I had been with talk talk for years and the same laptop in the same location had worked fine on WIFI... 

Next observation: Today I waited until the WIFI was lost to almost nothing on my laptop and then I shut off my mobile phone to see if there was any difference, which would then indicate that my mobile phone (Motorola G8) was interfering with the WIFI signal to the laptop...but there was no difference with the phone switched off... Have done this before but tried it again today...

Next observation: Waiting until I had zero WIFI on my laptop, I tried to send an email on my mobile phone, using the exact same email account/inbox - Outlook which is shared between my phone and my laptop. I found that I could send and receive emails on my phone (sitting next to the laptop) when the laptop was immobilised effectively, due to low WIFI reception. Later the laptop would update itself when its WIFI was back and working...

Another observation. I bought a cheap (£12) TPLink (single band?) WIFI booster, and set it up next the sage m com fast 266 and I found that, on its own it came close, in speed, to the sage m com, but together, they seemed to fight each other and the WIFI speed was next to nothing with them both operating. So I gave up with that. I am hoping that the second Sage m com Fast 266 will work ok with its partner...

That's it for now. I would welcome any comments by people who understand the problem. 

Best regards,

Michael Halliday 

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi MichaelEH,

Thanks for the information glad to hear that, with Keith kind assistance, you managed to get to the bottom of the problem 🙂

Chris

[MichaelEH]

==============================================

This text summary copied over from my other post - "A method I have discovered of mapping wifi signal strength" - about the same problem...

==============================================

10/04/24 

Well, I've just been up most of the night working on this problem...of wifi speed dropping down to less than 1mbps down load within an hour or so as described previously in this post... Or rather should I say arriving at the solution, which is where I feel I am at now! 

Keith French has been massively helpful with his input of technical knowledge, and I have added to that a systematic/scientific approach to trying solutions and testing theories...

So, as briefly as I can, here is a (final!?) summary. Problem described in post above was deemed by the talktalk home visit engineer as solvable by adding a second Fast 266 wifi booster. This arrived last Friday and I hooked it up and experimented with the optimum place to locate it in the corridor of my small flat. My flat is a linear layout with front room with TV at one end, Kitchen with router in the middle and bedroom with macbook pro laptop computer at the other end. So, second 266 was placed about 1.5m nearer the router compared to first one which is outside my bedroom door, in line of sight with computer. Both rooters had optimum green and white lights.

I was now getting maximum possible wifi speeds at my computer in my bedroom (37.4mbps) and this carried on for the weekend. At this point I had just joined the community here and Keith French was explaining that two routers was not a way to combat plummeting wifi speed since this was probably caused by wifi interference/congestion.  A strong signal (supplied by two boosters) was not the solution to the catastrophic regular loss of speed I had been having. We explored my set up and Keith told me about a known firmware glitch with certain TalkTalk wifi extenders/Power Line Adaptors such as the one I had connecting the router to my TV, which could also cause a drop off of wifi speed. 

At this stage I was very happy to soak up all the new information and wifi theory, knowing that my system was working perfectly. I work in TV broadcasting so am naturally interested in the way broadband works and of course any help with my home situation, having been struggling with it on and off since last Autumn. However, I was convinced that the second router had been a silver bullet solution to my reoccurring problem of loss of wifi speed, which now seemed to be banished. 

Then on Sunday night the problem came back again and once more wifi speed decayed down to less than 1gbps, not enough to open an email...so back to the repetitive switching on and off of the wifi at the desktop of my laptop and repetitive loading, reloading and running of the TalkTalk.help speed checker until the speed jumped back up to 37mbps...which would last about an hour and then start again... 

The next two days were spent, in between doing other important life tasks - like going to work and taking my Mum for a hospital check up - investigating my wifi setup. 

I renamed the devices in the online map of my router, having already got proficient at logging into my router website, and looking at the windows for: "devices", "mesh" and "extenders", and it is worth doing this so that your not constantly having to look at numbers:

TalkTalk.help in the search bar gets you to support links window - access your router (mine Sagemcom Fast 5364) - log in(find out online how to online) - middle window, wifi settings - manage advanced settings - cog to get into either 2.4 or 5GHz - wifi mesh - devices ...and you get the black button option to rename your devices...works very well once you have navigated there!

Essential tech terms! :

SSID = service set identifier basically the name and source of a wifi network/signal

AP access point = somewhere a device can pick up a wifi signal

BSSID = basic service set ID - a device sending a wifi signal and the other devices that are receiving that signal so a network. note: the name is a set of numbers in the same format as a MAC address...but is not!

Then, as already described, downloading onto my phone wifi analyser aps including... "Wifi Analyser" - Android - is simplest, does the job and is free. However we now found that my phone only worked in 2.4GHz frequency band and, since the second 266 booster allowed my computer start started receiving on the 5GHz bandwidth, the next stage was to down load 'Netspot' analyser (free) to my Macbook pro and this would be able to see 5GHz wifi signals... At this point I had already sent Keith numerous screen shots of my router windows and screen shots of windows of the wifi analyser ap results from my phone...

Meanwhile, depressingly, the fading to nothing wifi signal phenomenon continued... At one point, on a "nothing", whilst operating on one 266 booster and the router , I switched on the second booster and noted that this addition had no effect on increasing the wifi speed...the only way to get the speed to 'snap' back up to 37mbps download was the laborious ritual of switching on and off of the wifi on the computer and loading and reloading and trying to run the (TalkTalk.help) speed checker...

Last night after working late I got home and installed Netspot on my mac (scary warning about damaged software but over-rode the warning and nothing has shown up on virus scans since!) and with this I could see all the wifi devices on both 2.4 as well as 5GHz freq. bands, as well as a time flow graph that shows up signal strength/noise of the networks and breaks in the signal where I had switched on and off my laptop wifi...

Note: at this time I was just learning, thanks to Keith, the difference between BSSIDs and MAC addresses...there is a BSSID for each router and booster that represents the device and the ones it sends to... and there is a different BSSID in each wave band...so for my router and two 266 boosters there were six BSSIDs to note down...Once again: it is different from the MAC address though that is what it looks like!

Keith and I had discussed the possibility that my Power Line Adaptor (connecting the internet to my TV set top box from my router via ethernet and mains plug points as far as I was concerned) might be sending out wireless signals which could be interfering with those of the router and 266 booster(s) and the more I thought of it this was something to eliminate from the equation...

When I got home from work, having sent Keith off a round of screen shots from Net spot and the router, I investigated the PLA and found that it had ethernet cables at both ends ie router to mains plug and TV end, mains plug to set top box... But, as discussed I investigated how to log onto it's website, and found the instructions on the net, how you use the IP address and the password from the larger of the two boxes to log in...eventually got there and amongst all the pages was one that showed the PLA(D-Link) network which did indeed, despite being wired with ethernet cables, broadcast a wifi signal, both in 5 and 2.4GHz! ...a bit more searching revealed a page where you could disable the wifi...this I then quickly did and closed down. Now the tests: Yes, the TV could still communicate with the internet since catch up was working... Before I logged into the PLA user interface I had gone through the time honoured ritual of getting the wifi speed up to 37mbps and, having switched off the PLA's wifi I was happy to see that the wifi signal from the router via the one 266 booster I was using, had not been affected... I then sent Keith a third round of screenshots from the PLA and turned in in the early hours of this morning! 

So; a second period of waiting has begun. Since disabling the PLA's wifi signal, I have had non of the frequent losses of wifi speed at my computer, currently using just one 266 booster which results in the router allowing 5GHz to be used to send to the Macbook pro computer. So far so good....has been more than half a day trouble free. If the problem never comes back then we can say it was down to the wifi coming from the D-Link PLA in some way...which makes sense since the current problems started when I installed the new PLA last September.  The apparent solution of adding the second 266 booster lasted about two days before the (interference??) problem came back, so it's now a case of watch this space... I am due to speak with the Talktalk tech department tomorrow and so if the system is still free of problems that will be something...

I hope some of this description can be of use if you are wrestling with your own wifi set up...

Good luck!

MH     

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the feedback, your help and perseverance with this is much appreciated 🙂

Chris

[KeithFrench]

Hi @Michelle-TalkTalk @Debbie-TalkTalk @Chris-TalkTalk @MichaelEH 

This has been one of the most complex investigations I have undertaken for TalkTalk, although the problem, when found was easy to rectify.

The customer not only has two Sagemcom FAST266s connected in a mesh network with his router, but also has the older TalkTalk WiFi Extender (D-Link DHP-W610AV) connected to an Ethernet port somewhere on this mesh network.

I reported a bug with the D-Link DHP-W610AV a long time ago, where both the 2.4 & 5GHz bands of this WiFi Extender still broadcast these WiFi signals. However, the D-Link gradually reduces its throughput within the extender unit itself. Any Ethernet connection through it remains unaffected by this bug. I am still waiting for D-Link to release a firmware update that rectifies this situation.

The customer has been using devices in the same room as this D-Link DHP-W610AV and connected to its WiFi, rather than the nearest mesh extender node (everything sharing the same SSID). Therefore the connection would experience a gradual decay of its speed over time. This extender was still required to get an Ethernet connection to a TV, therefore I got the customer to disable the WiFi on this extender & he now has a reliable wireless connection, with speeds relative to his fibre's speed.

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

No problem @MichaelEH  🙂

[MichaelEH]

Thanks for the email Debbie, I should be able to carry on the analysis with Kieth later on today...

Best regards,

MH

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Thanks @KeithFrench 🙂

[KeithFrench]

Hi @Debbie-TalkTalk 

I am currently waiting for @MichaelEH  to get back to me with more information, he ran out of time yesterday.

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi @MichaelEH 

KeithFrench is one of our valued Community Stars and can help with a range of issues related to wireless and networking. At times he may ask you to send him test results via a Private Message to help analyse/diagnose an issue.  Although Keith does not work for TalkTalk, he very kindly shares his time and knowledge to help with others.  If you need further help or, if we need to take any details such as personal information about your account like phone numbers, account numbers etc.  one of the TalkTalk team will jump in and help out.

Thanks @KeithFrench 

[KeithFrench]

Hi @MichaelEH 

Please PM me (to preserve your privacy) screenshots of the overview, extenders and devices mesh tabs, plus details of your phone. Then I'll take a look at them for you. Obviously with two 266s this might require some screenshots to be split into more than one file, so as I can see the complete picture.

[MichaelEH]

Hi there Divsec, Chris and Keith,

One more observation to add to the picture of my WIFI topography:

If I log on to my router online and got to 'mesh' tab and then 'devices', in both the 2.4 and 5GHz band windows, I am informed that (4 devices in total) my laptop is connected wirelessly via 5GHz frequency but my mobile phone is connected wirelessly via 2.4GHz frequency band...just noticed that this morning.  Also, one WIFI 266 booster has a 'good' connection and the other has an 'excellent' connection to the router. Both the phone and the laptop are connected wirelessly via the 'good' 266 booster. The other two devices listed are connected via ethernet cable and are my TV Set top box and my power line adaptor.   

Best,

MH

[KeithFrench]

Hi @MichaelEH 

The WiFi mesh tabs take you to the same place, the Overview tab. They are not independent of each other in respect of the 2.4 or 5GHz bands.

[MichaelEH]

Hi there Divsec and Chris, 

Well it looks like I have crossed the Rubicon here...after months of struggling! I just did a speed check and the needle rocketed up into the 30s and gave me a 37.3mbps download speed (9.5 up) without me having to reboot anything...so that is a first, for the system to keep its speed for any length of time. I guess the TALKTALK engineer that came round to my property and prescribed another router was bang on. What a relief! I have a text book now, filled with pages of router speed reading...time of day taken...position...channel...frequency band...type of reboot... Looks like I can dispense with it now...

For what it is worth, the signal strength, as measured on my mobile phone around my laptop where it is situated in my bedroom (two rooms away from the router) is a pretty solid "excellent", on its four point scale...a bit of "good" at the far end of the keyboard (arial runs along the back of the keyboard). All the rest of the room between laptop and two 266 boosters in corridor is "excellent". Bizarrely, standing in front of the router in the kitchen the speed can dip to "good" and "fair" but then comes back up to "excellent" so it must fluctuate a bit at the router... down stream of the two boosters towards my laptop, is a solid "excellent" as measured on my phone. Kieth French, on my other post made the same day as this one, says that strong signal strength does not necessarily add up to fast WIFI speeds, however, at the moment the fact is that an excellent wifi signal as measured on my phone is correlating directly with consistently high WIFI speeds on my laptop.  

As mentioned in previous post, devices showing up online on the router in both 5GHz as well as 2.4GHz is a first for me...Just looking now at the 'mesh' pages and on 5GHz, I have a 'good' connection for one 266 booster and an 'excellent' connection for the other...and my mobile phone and lap top are shown connected wirelessly to the extender with the 'good' connection. If I go into the mesh page for 2.4GHz band, again, the same thing, one booster with a 'good' connection with phone and computer wirelessly attached and the other 266 booster with an 'excellent' connection with no devices attached. The only difference is that, in 2.4GHz it is only showing one out of the two ethernet devices attached, in 5GHz it shows two ethernet devices attached... I have taken screen shots of both windows and the summary window which I could send to TALKTALK if desired. Will wait to hear from Chris on Monday.

In the meantime, I think that's it for WIFI discussion at the moment! Time to get on with my life! Will keep an eye on it but does look like the second 266 booster was a silver bullet solution...

Thanks for your input so far.

Best,

MH

[Divsec]

Hi @MichaelEH glad things are looking up.

The optimisation is supposed to find the least congested channel and then switch to it. Sometimes it seems to do the opposite. 

Chris doesn't work weekends so it will be Monday before he can contribute. 

[MichaelEH]

Hi there Divsec and Chris, 

I've updated my profile as requested...

Just to put you in the picture, my router (Sagemcom Fast 5364 - 3T8) is pretty much new. Was replaced last autumn if I remember correctly. Also, it has has the latest firmware up date which I understand came out last November...I missed it initially but was I was belatedly given it by TALKTALK tech department in January this year...so my router should be up to date as far as I know... 

Latest news: I got my prescribed second Sagemcom Fast 266 booster this afternoon which I have just spent a few hours experimenting with, in position, recording speed values with no, one and two 266 boosters working and I have managed to find a position where both boosters are registering as an "excellent connection" in the online router 'mesh' page. The speed is still holding at the max 36/7mbps download that I can expect and it has been a few hours now since I got both boosters working together and "snapped up" the WIFI speed as per my method described in my first post above. Finally and for the first time, I can see looking at the router online, that it is connected to my wireless devices, my phone and laptop, both in 2.4GHz and 5Ghz... which is really something new...I was told that the router would only start to work in 5GHz if I got much closer to it with my laptop... My laptop (in my bedroom, two rooms away from the router in my kitchen) is really the main thing I need to work wirelessly and which has been suffering with the dropping of of speed I have been having recently. Apart from that there is my mobile phone but that is it, really, for my WIFI 'load'. So; this latest phenomenon of the 5GHz band kicking in when I have not changed the geography of the laptop relative to the router, would seem to be a direct result of using the second 266 booster and hopefully bodes well for the speed loss problem I have been having. I will report back in the next day to let you know...

Then one more thing If I may: Divec was asking about WIFI optimisation...I wonder could you clarify what this is and how it works...? Kieth, on my other post made yesterday was kind enough to describe it but I am not sure if I have go it right: I is a system on the router that (when activated, which it is by default) tells the router to ignore changes to the channels and bands (frequencies) which I make...?

If I have got that correct then I think WIFI optimisation must be working on my router as it is designed to do since I have previously tried changing the channel, both to another of the prescribed ones and to 'auto' but have since then observed that the router periodically changes the channel itself without me doing anything except rebooting it or my computer wifi. 

Very grateful if you could let me know if i have to that understanding right...?

I look forward to hearing any comments you have on my reports...Keith, on my other post gave me a wonderfully good insight into how the router works in dealing with WIFI loads... 

Best,

MH  

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Michael,

Can you please update your community profile to include your:

• Name
• Telephone number
• Alternative contact number

We'll then look into this further. Please do not post this information on this thread. Once you've updated your profile please post in your topic to confirm it's updated.

Thanks

Chris

[Divsec]

Hi @MichaelEH your post has been escalated and you should hear soon. Sounds as though the replacement router will do the trick. Just one thought, is WiFi optimisation enabled or not? Default is enabled and this can be disabled by the team here. Wait till the new router arrives. 😉