Internet dropping a few times every hour

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15 Jan 2023
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3
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Perth
Good evening, I hope someone can guide me in the right direction. My internet has been dropping for no apparent reason. My provider is saying it is on my side and they can't help.
Reading through the forum, I have been playing with pingplotter and believe my provider might be right as there seem to be a lot of packages lost when pinging my gateway 192.168.1.1 ... as I have NO knowledge at all how these things should work, it has been mostly from reading posts and trying that I came to the conclusion if there are packets missing between my laptop and the gateway ... that might be the problem. The network I have at home has a router provided by my isp, and I then use a mesh wifi with 5 units of Tenda MW12. The issue seems to exist whether connected to a cable or wifi.

Apologies but can't figure out how to add an image to my post but added a link below where int can be found.


Any help to direct me would be welcome.
Thanks
Joseph
 
Do you have another PC\laptop in the home? does this gave the same issue or is it just the laptop that has the issue?

What router did your ISP supply you?

Has the laptop ever worked ok or has the issue been there since getting the laptop?

When the laptop was connected via the cable, was this directly to the isp router or to 1 of the Tenda MW12?
 
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I assume when the internet drops the Wifi connection is still up and connected ? I would try the cabled connection to the router without the MESH system on. Remove all other variables from the equation and build from there. If the cabled to the router on its own works, try wifi on the router. if that works add the MESH back in. By the way, how are the MESH devices connected, are they all wifi ? 5 devices is quite a few and there will be a cost on the hardware and wifi backhaul to all those nodes connecting togther. If the router only connection works, and the wifi to the router works, maybe try the mesh with 3 devices, than add another etc, build up to the full system until the issue reappears.
Of course the issue may be with your laptop, do you have other devices you can try?
 
Thanks @ED209 and @thebandit. Answering to your questions:
  1. wifi never disconnects
  2. mesh wifi seems to have more lost blocks than when connected directly to the router wifi
  3. when connected by cable - directly to the router, the lost packages don't seem to happen or are very rare
  4. laptop works fine on other networks either wifi or cable
  5. I have 2 other laptops connected and the behaviour is identical when connected to the network in the same way
I have tried to find some sort of tool that can help to diagnose the mesh but have found nothing so far. I have connected the mesh with dhcp or bridge mode and the problem seems to remain. I have circa 30 devices connected to the mesh: printers, laptops, tv, smart plugs and lamps ... was thinking to create 2 different networks to separate "critical" connections from the rest ... any other ideas I should try?

Thanks,
Joseph
 
Sounds like congestion or similar on the wifi network, I assume your MESH system is purely wifi ie the nodes are not connected using a network cable ?
Has this issue only just started happening or has it always been the case with the MESH network ? (ie was it working fine, then just started being an issue, did you add something new to the network etc ?).

I ask because a MESH network uses the same wifi channels to connect each node as your laptop does to connect it. There are a few ways in which MESH systems connect nodes, with variations on the numbers of wifi channels used, the topology, and whether it has decicated backhaul radios. I have no experience with the Tenda MW12 system, I just question how it scales with 5 nodes all wirelessly connected, (both in compute and wifi bandwidth)

Few things to try, download a free wifi site scanner to your phone or laptop and check which channels are used in you home, look for over lapping SSID's from neighbours etc, also check for close channels like 1 and 2 for example, these will interfere with each other too. You should also be able to see all the channels used by the MESH system.

In the 2.4GHz band if using 40Mhz wide channels there are only 3 bands which can be used without interfering with each other (CH1, 6, 11). I would assume where possible the MESH would try and use the higher bandwidth 5Ghz channels for its backhaul (although the some congestion criteria exists here too). If there are numerous channels used ie 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11 etc you may have ofund your issue.

If you haven't already, turn off the wifi from your router and only use the MESH (the router will needlessly occupy a wifi channel not controlled by the MESH system). Try using just two MESH nodes see if the issue persists, if not add another, and repeat.

If possible, even just to try, connect as many of the MESH nodes using cable to the router so the backhaul is not using the wifi, if this isn't possible insitu just put them all close to the router to try it. If that resolves you issue you could look at cabling permenantly or using homeplug to connect the nodes.
 
This seems to be the guide changing the channel for Tenda: https://www.tendacn.com/faq/2331.html

Just a sight correction above, if 2.4GHz is congested ideally you'll want to stick with 20MHz so it won't overlap as much with other WiFi networks in the area. 40MHz is pretty wide for that frequency and I can only recommend it if you're in a quiet area.
 
hello all, after having the chance to play with the system, I have not manager to resolve the problem. The app doesn't allow to play with bands and the web access described on the link provided by @Orcvader is not accessible. So ... I gave up as need a reliable connection to work from home. Bought the tp-link XE75 and works perfect and gained a lot of speed and only need 3 units instead of the 5 I had with the mw12. thanks for all the help.
 
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