Something weird has been happening with my WiFi for about a month and I’m honestly running out of ideas.
The connection doesn’t actually drop. Windows still says I’m connected, signal looks fine, but Teams calls suddenly go robotic or lose audio, websites hang halfway through loading, and YouTube randomly buffers like I’m on dial-up. The packet loss is the worst part. It’ll sit at 0% for a while, then jump all over the place during a call.
Here’s why I don’t think it’s my router:
I’ve tried two different routers, three laptops (different WiFi cards), both 2.4 and 5 GHz, and several channels. Same nonsense. Ethernet works perfectly.
Even my phone hotspot behaves strangely. If I leave the phone right next to my laptop, everything works. Move it across the room and the connection starts falling apart. That doesn’t happen when I use the same setup at my parents’ house.
I live in an apartment building, and there’s one neighboring WiFi network that seems ridiculously strong everywhere. I can walk halfway down the corridor and it’s still showing almost the same signal, while every other network gradually gets weaker or disappears.
Part of me wonders if someone is running their router at stupidly high TX power or has some weird custom setup.
I’ve got a Linux laptop with a wireless adapter that supports monitor mode on 2.4 GHz, but no spectrum analyzer.
How would you even go about proving what’s causing this?
You’re jumping to the neighbor conclusion pretty fast. A strong network doesn’t automatically mean it’s interfering with yours, and it definitely doesn’t mean somebody hacked their router to blast at illegal power levels. Could just be multiple APs broadcasting the same SSID.
@midway_loaded That’s actually something I hadn’t considered. My scanner only shows the network name and signal graph unless I open the details. But would multiple APs explain why the signal barely changes while I’m walking?
Potentially, yes. You could be seeing different radios with the same SSID as you move around. Check the BSSIDs, not just the network name. If they’re changing, you’ve probably found your explanation for that part. Doesn’t explain your packet loss though.
I would stop changing router settings for a minute and actually map out what’s happening. NetSpot is useful for this. Check the channel graph and signal levels where you normally work, then repeat in a couple of other spots. Look at the BSSIDs too, especially for that mystery network. You might find your own AP is fighting several other networks on the same channel. Or you might find that the supposedly evil neighbor network isn’t even on the channel you’re using. Neither result proves the whole story, but at least you’re working with something besides WiFi bars.
Am I the only one wondering why this is happening on 5 GHz too? OP says there aren’t many 5 GHz networks nearby. If this were just the usual apartment-building 2.4 GHz mess, I’d expect 5 GHz to be noticeably better.
@AutoPilot_2012 Fewer visible networks doesn’t necessarily mean a clean channel. One busy AP can use more airtime than ten basically idle ones. And a normal WiFi scanner isn’t going to show you every possible source of RF interference.
@Present-Implement42 Sure, but that’s exactly why I’m not convinced by the neighbor theory. Everybody sees one strong SSID and immediately assumes it’s responsible for everything.
@AutoPilot_2012 Agreed. Strong RSSI isn’t evidence of a network misbehaving. Something local is affecting the wireless side of this setup, but we don’t know what yet.