Builders killing wireless?

iviv · 18 Mar 2008 at 16:43

For around a week now, out house has had scaffolding all over it because the roof is being retiled. And the internet has been fine. However, as of yesterday, my PCs internet connection has been sporadic at best. Now, I'm on the second floor of the house, and the router is on the ground floor, we have cable and thats the only place it can go. The signal has never been amazing, but its never been too bad either. However, yesterday is just want to pot. I can hardly load any websites, they time out 95% of the time. Most MSN messages don't get through, and when I try to download something while it is working, I don't see much more than 1kb/s. I can't even load the router page.
I tried with my laptop too, and its the same problem. However, if I go downstairs and sit next to the router with the laptop, its fine.

But the thing is I'm still getting 3 or 4 out of 5 bars on my PC, its a good solid connection, so I don't see what could be causing the problem. I've reset the router, as well as unplugged it for 30 seconds, but still no change.

The only thing I could think of would be something the builders have done. But the scaffolding has been up for around a week, and it only started happening yesterday. And again, I'm connected to the router with a good signal, but I just can't send or recieve anything from it?

Cosmic182 · 18 Mar 2008 at 17:26

if the signal strength is excellent how could they have done anything?

iviv · 18 Mar 2008 at 18:02

Well, in that case, why can't I get any internet in my room, even with good signal strength? It is the same on both my PC and laptop upstairs. But if I take the laptop down and sit next to the wireless, it works fine.

For some reason, I'm getting a good signal but nothing is actually working.

whitecrook · 18 Mar 2008 at 19:27

It's entirely possible to get a strong signal, but for the signal to be useless due to errors/noise. And these 'bar meter' things are usually pretty useless.

iviv · 18 Mar 2008 at 20:02

Ah, I see. I don't know much about these sorts of things, but what could suddenly cause this? I only guessed at the scaffold, but I have no idea if that would change a thing. Nobody's stuck the router in a microwave or anything, and I turned off my Van der Graff generator :/

Is it possible somehow to change either the router settings, or something on my wireless card to boost the signal strength, or something?

swinnie · 18 Mar 2008 at 20:23

iviv said:
Ah, I see. I don't know much about these sorts of things, but what could suddenly cause this? I only guessed at the scaffold, but I have no idea if that would change a thing. Nobody's stuck the router in a microwave or anything, and I turned off my Van der Graff generator :/

Is it possible somehow to change either the router settings, or something on my wireless card to boost the signal strength, or something?

Try changing the Wireless Channel on the router.

radderfire · 19 Mar 2008 at 00:21

What kind of router is it? I guess it's possible that the scaffolding could be affecting the signal transmission. If your router is one that adjusts automatically to create a better transmission, then I can imagine the scaffolding might interfere.

I've never looked into it, but is there a way of focusing the router radio transmission by using foil behind the aerial like a satellite dish??

iviv · 19 Mar 2008 at 02:05

radderfire said:
What kind of router is it? I guess it's possible that the scaffolding could be affecting the signal transmission. If your router is one that adjusts automatically to create a better transmission, then I can imagine the scaffolding might interfere.

Its some damn obscure make that I'd never heard of before, and can never remember. There's nothing on the router page either, no brand, no logo, nothing except 'AP-Router'.

Anywho, oddly the problem seems to have cleared up for the moment, at least. If it happens again, I'll try fiddling around with the channel, good idea.

Thanks for the help

bledd · 19 Mar 2008 at 09:22

could it be someone is raping the connection with p2p?

pendulum666 · 19 Mar 2008 at 09:25

Yeah I would first change the wireless channel. i.e. default is usually 11. Try say 3.
Also, check you can login to router and nothing has been changed/hacked. Try a hard reset. Move closer to it to test?

unwashed potato! · 19 Mar 2008 at 11:03

bledd. said:
could it be someone is raping the connection with p2p?

thats what i was thinking, is the wireless secure? maybe a neighbour is using the wireless without you realising. I am not sure how wireless connection work but am i right in thinking that the closer to the connection the more priority uyou have, so say if your upstairts and friend dowstairs, the downstairs friend will get the connection that he eneds first, and then whatever is left, if any, will go to you? if so im just thinking say a neighbour or even a friend slightly closer to the wireless ap is using the net and getting priority over you

iviv · 19 Mar 2008 at 12:26

Well, at builders were here at 9, and everything was still going fine, then at 11 it started going iffy again. Eventually made it into the wireless router settings and jumped to channel 9. When I reconnected to the network it was all going fine again.

Thanks for the help.

The network is secure, though the key could well fall into the realms of 'easily guessable'. However, there are 7 other wireless networks around us, most of them secured with WEP rather than WPA2 like this one, so people would probably try and break those first.
And if soemone was P2Ping the connection (Unlikely since virgin go 'BLARG!' at that sort of thing) moving closer wouldn't get it working, would it?

Finally, I was poking around the router page, and found these:

Advanced Setting
Beacon Interval (20-1000 ms)
RTS Threshold (256-2432)
DTIM Period (1-255)
Transmit Rate
Preamble Type Long Short Auto
802.11g protection

Any of them mean anything, and would they be worth poking?