What's up with my router?

Factual Questions
1

My router’s ADSL connection seems to be affected by interference from it’s own WiFi interface. This baffles me. The full story:

I have had at home a wireless router for about 18 months. It is next to the phone line, and also next to a PC, which is connected to it by Cat 5 cabling. A second PC is connected to the router wirelessly. This set up worked fine for some time, although when we upgraded from 512kb ADSL to 2Mb ADSL a few months ago, we started getting some connection problems.

It wasn’t anything much - we just found that every now and again, there would be some errors on the line, and the connection would drop. It would reconnect after 30 seconds or so, and we’d be off again. Annoying, but not the end of the world. However, this started happening more and more frequently. Last week, it got to the stage that even when connected, almost every packet arrives with an error so you can’t even view 1 web page.

I had a look at the stats on the router, and all the evidence pointed to the quality of the phone line being too low for a 2Mb connection. However, I rang the ISP, and the phone company, they ran some tests and said that any problem with the line must be on our side of things. I had a friend come round and he took a look - he’s no telecoms engineer, he’s a computer geek like me (but more so). He fiddled around and quickly came to the same conclusion as me - that there is a problem in quality of line somewhere between the router and the exchange. It could be the cable in our house from the router to the wall socket. Righto, I’ll find a spare and try changing it over, and then if nothing else helps, I’ll get an engineer to check the line.

However, just before he went, he was fiddling around with the settings on the router and switched off the WiFi. Suddenly the connection worked. The stats on the router still showed that the line quality was poor, but nowhere near as many errors. We could browse sites quickly, and even successfully download new firmware for the router. However, when we switched the WiFi back on, the errors came back and we had the same problems as before.

I am of course pleased that I now have some access, but I need WiFi for the PC upstairs. I’ve tried using 802.11b instead of g, but still got the same problem. Encryption settings don’t make a difference either. Does anyone know why on earth the router is suffering in this way? The WiFi shouldn’t affect the ADSL connection. Is it RF interference? Or can the router not do enough error correction with the WiFi also on? I am baffled. :confused:

Thanks in advance for your help!

2

Perhaps the router is faulty?

I had dodgy connection for months and also put it down to my line quality, but when I had to replace my router for other reasons (i.e. it blew up) the problems disappeared despite the replacement being the exact same make and model of router.

Can you take it to your friend’s house and test it on his ADSL connection?

3

I’ve seen this before. By any chance, is your wireless router stacked on top of the DSL modem?

You can try shielding the DSL with sheet metal, but it’s normally just easier to physically separate the things by a couple of feet.

4

Unfortunately it’s all one piece of hardware - the modem is within the router, so I can’t exactly separate them :).

Following some more experimentation, I’m just ordering a new router - they’re not exactly expensive and I’m not able to test on my friend’s line (he’s got cable rather than ADSL). Thanks for your input - it’s pushed me towards a new router (which will hopefully fix it!).