Extend Wifi Range

[craftyalice]

I have a Netgear 934 and the signal drops markedly into the one room in the house where I have a Roberts Stream wifi internet radio/music player.

I have been considering a TP Link TL-WA830RE 300Mbps Wireless N Range Extender

but it has mixed reviews about having to continually reboot, and that is no better than the situation I have at the moment where the signal keeps dropping.

My router signal is erratic anyway, often flashing amber and has cause me problems with internet banking.

I have tried changing channels but not much improvement.

Any advice welcome.

[tenar]

if you are having flashing amber light then issue is not wireless related for internet if have poor signal in just 1 room would suggest homeplug system instead especially as you have another wireless device in that room
post router stats as amber light indicating line drop outs

[Scubbie]

As tenar has suggested, HomePlugs could be a part of the solution. Some have a built in WiFi adaptor so this could be where your radio connects to.

As for the cause of the problem, this could be one of a number of things. Posting your router's connections stats in full would certainly help. If you could include the Router's uptime and the WAN & WLAN uptime too it would be helpful.

How to get your router statistics - Sky User - The unofficial support forum for everything Sky!

[craftyalice]

ROUTER STATISTICS

System Up Time: 263:31:17

Port	Status	TxPkts	RxPkts	Collisions	Tx B/s	Rx B/s	Up Time
WAN	PPPoA	1449501	1986334	0	360	4020	147:28:23
LAN	100M/Full	5049499	6980273	0	4076	3635	263:31:12
WLAN	11M/54M	344005	151995	0	1504	69	43:03:12

ADSL Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed	15358 kbps	944 kbps
Line Attenuation	23 db	9 db
Noise Margin	7 db	9 db

[Scubbie]

As I feared, your router's WiFi is possibly failing.

If you look at the up times, you will see that the router has been powered up for 263 hours. The WAN has reset 147 hours ago, but this isn't unusual.

The LAN time has been up for the full period, which is good and to be expected.

It is the WLAN time which I am concerned with. so unless you have been changing the router's WiFi settings (i.e. 43 hours before you took those stats) then there is an issue. For reference it you change the router's settings (i.e. SSID, security, add something to the Wireless access list, channel number).

Could you please confirm that you haven't changed any of these please?

If you haven't, then a friendly phone call to Sky is in order. I would expect that your router is out of warranty. This being the case, then they will want to charge you for a replacement. There should be two options:

1. £28 for a similar spec'd router (WiFi g)
2. £35+p&p for the Sagem 2504N (WiFi n)

I would suggest that you consider the 2nd option as it will have a stronger signal than what you have now. The Netgear DG934G works at up to 54mb/s over WiFi. The Sagem 2504N works at up to 144mb/s over WiFi.

If you have a device that supports WiFi n it may only connect up up to 72mb/s, but it is the strength of the signal which I am more concerned with in your case as it should help to reach your radio.

Also you may be able to negotiate a reduction in the cost, like some members have.

[craftyalice]

Thank you.
I have been changing the channel number as suggested on forums. I have moved it from 11 to 12 to 13 to 6 to see if it improves the situation.
So how does that change things?

I have purchased home plugs to see if that helps with my internet radio, but that doesn't solve the flashing amber. Internet banking suggests I get in touch with Sky.

[Scubbie]

Phew, so the WiFi isn't faulty.

The flashing amber LED normally indicates that your Internet connection is re-syncing. The figures above doesn't support this though.

There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for you having some connection issues though. Looking at your Profile you are in the Glasgow area. Sky recently completed some work to increase the capacity of some exchanges in the local area. Perhaps you could see if this affected yourself:

Glasgow Area - Exchanges at GOVAN,BEARSDEN,SPRINGBURN,MARYHILL

Glasgow Area - Exchanges at CUMBERNAULD,CARLISLE,CLYDEBANK,ALEXANDRIA,MOTHERWE LL,DRUM

Glasgow Area - Exchanges at CUMBERNAULD,CARLISLE,CLYDEBANK,ALEXANDRIA,MOTHERWE LL,DRUM

If the orange LED is still blinking then there is a possibility that either your connection to the telephone socket is playing up, the router or PSU has developed a fault or there is a fault between your home and the telephone exchange.

Going on the assumption that it is still playing up, could you describe how the router is connected to your telephone socket please? (i.e. microfilters, ADSL lead, extensions)

[Isitme]

So how does that change things?

Just to clarify, changing the router channel restarts the wireless LAN, so your up time is lower than your LAN time. The LAN time will only reset after a router reboot.

[craftyalice]

Router physically attached by ethernet cable to desktop PC. ADSL cable attached to microfilter directly into properly-wired-in-by-BT extension phone socket.

These exchange upgrades don't apply to the Busby exchange, which has given trouble before. We were on Sky Connect for a long time before so-called exchange upgrade.

[Scubbie]

Ok, I think perhaps we need to look at things a little differently.

Could you connect a corded telephone to the Test Socket (behind the split faceplate of the Master Socket) and perform a "Quiet Line Test". Essentially this requires you to dial '1' and listen for any noise. If you don't have test socket, then the master socket will do.

Could you now connect your router to the Test Socket, using just the short grey ADSL lead supplied with the Sky router and a microfilter.



When using the Test Socket, all your extensions should be dead. Can you verify this as well please?

You should be able to plug your telephone into the socket indicated on the microfilter for the telephone as well so that you can continue to use it as required.

When you have done this, could you post your router's connection stats as well for us please? There may be an improvement in the connection figures.

If this improves your connection, and you have a socket similar to the one above, then I have a few suggestions for you. First if you can see if this improves things it would be useful.

Do you have a computer that could be connected to the router to monitor things? If you do, could you download and install "RouterStats Lite". This program can pickup any basic issues should your connection drop.

Internet Software

It would be useful to keep this arrangement for a few days to monitor the situation.

If things work, then I would suggest that you purchase and install a filtered faceplate. There are a few choices here and we can discuss those. They all would mean that the router will need to be connected to the Master socket though.

If things do not improve, then a call to Sky will be needed to arrange either a replacement router or for BTO to repair your line, providing that you have Sky Talk as well.