How to diagnose a WiFi issue

joelk2 · 20 Sep 2020 at 14:33

I am with Plusnet for broadband but am using a BT router as the Plusnet one was faulty on arrival.

Sat now with my phone around 5cm from the router but the WiFi is still rhubard.

Images fail to load on things like instagram or Reddit.

In fact it often disconnects and then fails to obtain an IP address when trying to reconnect.

Avalon · 20 Sep 2020 at 20:02

When you put your ear 5cm from a loudspeaker do you hear music more clearly?

mickyflinn · 21 Sep 2020 at 10:30

Avalon said:
When you put your ear 5cm from a loudspeaker do you hear music more clearly?

You can't use to analogy to compare signal strength, the closer you are to the source the stronger the signal.

neil_g · 21 Sep 2020 at 12:48

mickyflinn said:
You can't use to analogy to compare signal strength, the closer you are to the source the stronger the signal.

you can be too close sometimes. depends on the antenna and the signal pattern from them.

Avalon · 21 Sep 2020 at 13:32

mickyflinn said:
You can't use to analogy to compare signal strength, the closer you are to the source the stronger the signal.

I can see why you’d think that, but reality can be very different.

mickyflinn · 21 Sep 2020 at 13:34

neil_g said:
you can be too close sometimes. depends on the antenna and the signal pattern from them.

Didn't no that, thanks .

Avalon said:
I can see why you’d think that, but reality can be very different.

Apologies.

APM · 22 Sep 2020 at 08:55

Restart the router and the device.

WJA96 · 22 Sep 2020 at 09:04

Definitely don’t stand less than 1m from the access point. 2m is probably better. The wavelength on 2.4GHz is very small (12.5cm) but if you’re literally 5cm from the router it’s quite possible to be inside a wavelength and miss the peak signal completely.

What kind of phone? Early iPhones were infamous for not connecting to BT equipment (but I’m talking about iPhone 4 and 4S).

There is a timing setting on Apple that causes them to think the signal has gone and disconnect.

Failing that, Check you’re on the latest BT firmware.

And the best advice so far on this thread was to turn everything off and reboot it, so definitely do that.