Wireless network help!

[wcjr]

Trying to help a friend out with wireless networking at his house.

The issue is that his wireless connection is extremely slow and even times out. He is currently using a linksys wrt54g router. I believe the issue is the amount of devices on the network.

He has an xbox 360, ps3, wii, ipod touch, 2 iphones, 3 laptops and a wireless printer. All of these devices almost never get used at the same time.

My question is, can you just add another router to separate the devices?
One router for computers and wireless printer and the seconds for game consoles, iphones, etc.


Any advice would help

 

[SonicDTR]

Is it his wireless connection timing out or the connection from the router to the outside world? I dont think that router is getting overloaded.

Try shutting everything off except for one thing and see what happens.

 

[wcjr]

Its the wireless connection. For instance you may have 3 laptops and devices running at the same time and all of a sudden one kicks out. The internet will slow down and will not be able to load a web page for a brief time. While the other 2 laptops are running fine. Seems like its maybe bottlenecking at the router.

 

[SonicDTR]

hmm, odd.

Depending on his setup adding another router wouldnt help, as that wireless router would have to connect to the 1st router to get to the internet. If he has a cable/dsl modem with multiple ports, then you could run multiple routers, but you'd need to configure them so they wouldnt conflict.

 

[thomas91169]

update the router firmware to see if that helps.

 

[99cobra302]

update the router firmware to see if that helps.

this first. i have far more things connected to my router than that and i have no issues. and i am using a Linksys WRT54gs.

the issue may be the internet connection itself. it might not be fast enough for all the devices on it.

 

[FordMustangLove]

I'm going to assume that most those devices are on the G spectrum. Im willing to bet 5 bucks that's its also on the same channel that everyone else is using. Remember G has a theoretical bandwidth of max 54Mbits at 2.4ghz which you are sharing with neighbors and the microwave etc. Im still a big newb on wireless , but its my understand that he will need to ditch G all together and go 5ghz wireless N, although if you continue to use iphone\itouch then that will degrade your N connection by reverting back to 2.4ghz until you turn it off. Hopefully someone knows a lot more than me and can be of further help.

 

[wcjr]

hmm, odd.

Depending on his setup adding another router wouldnt help, as that wireless router would have to connect to the 1st router to get to the internet. If he has a cable/dsl modem with multiple ports, then you could run multiple routers, but you'd need to configure them so they wouldnt conflict.

I was thinking of setting it up like this:

DSL modem to a gigabit switch then run ethernet to the two separate routers. That way your getting two separate feeds instead of going through one router to the next.

Is there anyone that has had this same issue? Just curious what people do when they get too many devices for one router. I believe that most routers can handle 5 devices and after that they start doing what I described.

 

[steve99]

The only thing that should happen with all of those devices connected, is that the connection would be slow. I have up to 8 connected to mine with no issues. The first thing you could try is setting the router to use a different channel such as 1 or 11, rather than the default of 6. I would also try turning off wireless security completely for a very short time just to test if it resolves the issue. I have had certain devices disconnect often to certain types of security encryption. If this doesn't work, your next best bet would be to reset the router to default settings. There should be a reset button you hold in/while powering off or something along those lines. After doing that, see if there is a firmware update through the router admin console. If there is, update it. If not, then proceed to setup the router for use. Leave all settings default except for the SSID and wireless security. See if the devices are still having the issue and if they are, I would then go grab a new wireless router and test it out.

 

[wcjr]

Since 8 devices slow the connection down, can you split them between 2 routers and have 4 things on each one? Would that help with the slowness?

 

[txyaloo]

I was thinking of setting it up like this:

DSL modem to a gigabit switch then run ethernet to the two separate routers. That way your getting two separate feeds instead of going through one router to the next.

Is there anyone that has had this same issue? Just curious what people do when they get too many devices for one router. I believe that most routers can handle 5 devices and after that they start doing what I described.

Both routers will need an external IP address, unless your modem also does NAT, this won't work.

Older wrt54g's tend to overheat when worked hard. When this happens, they slow down and drop connections. I solved it with mine by removing the router from its case and pointing a fan at it.

I would also see what version the router is. If it's an older one, I would replace the stock firmware with Tomato or DD-WRT. Either of them will offer better performance than the stock FW.

 

[TwinTurbo4vGT]

Since 8 devices slow the connection down, can you split them between 2 routers and have 4 things on each one? Would that help with the slowness?

why are you going to bother with another router? Just get a Linksys wireless access point. It piggybacks off your router and makes one or two (depending on model) more types of connections.

 

[svt_fan1129]

make sure you rename it FBI Surveillance Van 059

 

[BradN01]

The only thing that should happen with all of those devices connected, is that the connection would be slow. I have up to 8 connected to mine with no issues. The first thing you could try is setting the router to use a different channel such as 1 or 11, rather than the default of 6. I would also try turning off wireless security completely for a very short time just to test if it resolves the issue. I have had certain devices disconnect often to certain types of security encryption. If this doesn't work, your next best bet would be to reset the router to default settings. There should be a reset button you hold in/while powering off or something along those lines. After doing that, see if there is a firmware update through the router admin console. If there is, update it. If not, then proceed to setup the router for use. Leave all settings default except for the SSID and wireless security. See if the devices are still having the issue and if they are, I would then go grab a new wireless router and test it out.

I would also see what version the router is. If it's an older one, I would replace the stock firmware with Tomato or DD-WRT. Either of them will offer better performance than the stock FW.

Both of these are great starting points. I'd start with the channel suggestion if the thought of flashing your router with different firmware scares you. DD-WRT is excellent firmware for the ol' Linksys boxes.

 

[SweetSVT99]

There are obviously several factors when troubleshooting network performance issues, but in most cases, having only 8 devices connected to a wireless network alone is not going to affect it's performance.

The internet connection timing out is not necessarily an indication of a faulty router. The first thing I would do, as already suggested, is go ahead and make sure your firmware is the most current on the router. Second, I would see if I could narrow it down: In other words, does a specific machine(s) cause this to happen. Third, consider the speed of the internet connection, and what each device on the network is doing. If you have a 1.5mbps dsl connection with the Xbox and PS3 doing online gaming, while one laptop is streaming music and the other streaming netflix, you are likely using up all the bandwith.

One other problem I've had with the WRT54G is with people downloading Torrents, or otherwise using applications (typically peer to peer type apps). I have seen that router have trouble with high number of simultaneous connections (I'm not talking devices here!). Some peer to peer applications will allow 100's of connections per download, causing the router to freeze for a period of time.

So...

1) Check/Update the firmware on the router
2) Check the speed of their internet connection, with all devices but one laptop off: Speakeasy - Speed Test
3) Change channel on router, especially if there are other wireless networks within range or you have cordless phones.
4) Make sure any P2P applications are off.
5) Check the machines for viruses/malware/spyware/etc.
6) Make sure iPods, iPhones, PS3's, etc etc etc are all on the latest firmware/Operation System
7) Update the network drivers on machines

If all of the above do nothing, consider replacing the router. Again, 8 devices is not too much for pretty much any later model router, WRT54G included. I've used that model for years, and even have some locations that have 25+ devices connected to a single unit without any trouble.