We have optimum online internet. We were given the modem and also a router as well to use. Its the netgear n600 router. We also have VOIPO phone service as well connected as we need internet on or the voipo won’t work.
I have noticed that the wifi sometimes would not work. I could not connect to it. But those times that it does work, it would have some very short disconnects like a few seconds then it would go back to connected.
However when i put an ethernet cable to it and thus a wired connection from the laptops, rarely is there any issue with the internet. There might be a short disconnect for a bit but i haven’t noticed it yet.
Is there a reason for this? We put the router in the 2nd floor in this house and we basically put it on top of a very short table. Basically its placed about 1 feet over that little table… that little table also has the modem and our cordless phone and thus the voipo.
I know location of the router is important but could putting it a bit too low like just 1 feet above the floor be a cause of this?
Could it be the router issue itself as i read many routers would disconnect throughout the day? I did check online and i did read a few ppl mention this about this router.
Optimum online gave us this router to use while we signed up for their cable internet service only. Thus if we cancel the service we have to return it back to them. Has anyone here used this router and can give their experiences? Also, would you guys suggest i unplug and plug the power cord each night just to reset it for a short time? I wouldn’t do it overnight however because if we do that, then our phone service the voipo won’t work.
I have one spare router but its the old wrt54g purple router and its the really old type. The thing is i dont think i would to take that one out as its not dual band. Anyone have suggestions? Should i get a new router then? Also optimum onilne told us that we could not change the name of our network for our wifi. Thus the one they gave us we can’t change it. I also think we couldn’t the password either. Is that true? I assume if we get another router… we have to use the same connection name and password?
Thanks.
It’s because wifi sucks. It operates on unlicensed spectrum and competes with all your neighbors’ hotspots. Try switching channels and/or frequency bands. If that doesn’t work, just get long ethernet cables and your troubles will be over. Home wifi is totally overrated unless you really need to use that laptop in the yard or whatever.
The Netgear N600 router is an “old” router. It was an almost average dual-band router when it came out five years ago. I would not have bought it new five years ago.
That Optimum Online “gave” it to you should tell you something. Optimum Online also advertises on its web site millions of free WiFi hotspots in its service area so I suspect they modified the router so anyone nearby can access one of the bands for free. You are not charged for that use, but it may impact your access.
Your Linksys WRT54G came out in several variants. Not all of them root well with DD-WRT. If you don’t know what I meant in that last sentence, don’t even attempt it.
Best bet: Buy your own modem and your own wireless router. Make sure they are compatible with each other and with Optimum. The gold standard for cable modems is the Motorola SB6121 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0.
I’m having similar issues. In the past maybe 6 months, our wireless is dropping quite a bit. Mr. Athena and I both work at home, so we do stress our wireless more than your average home user. At any given time, we have two work computers connected, as well as two home computers, and a smattering of other devices (phones, iPads, Tivo, etc.)
Our router is a Linksys EA4500. We also have a NetGear N600 extender, as the wireless from the router isn’t quite enough to get through the whole house with a good signal.
I downloaded this app, to see if something obviously wrong shows up. I don’t see any networks other than ours (not surprising, we’re not in a huge neighborhood and our direct neighbors are pretty far from us), but I do see the extender and the router are sharing channels. For example, the 2.4Ghz network on the router and the extender are both on channel 3, the 5.1 are both on 36.
Is that how it should be set up? Or is that maybe part of our problem? I’m afraid to change them without knowing a bit more about what it should be.
Okay so if you avoid netgear, then what brand do you recommend? I still have the linksys wrt54g and it was great but i read its a not an N router so to not bother with it.
I just acquired a new laptop. and set it up right next to my desktop. The laptop is running off the same router, WiFi for the laptop, and ethernet for the old PC that has no WiFi card. I ran speedtest similtanously on the two computers, and the speed was 2-3 times as fast on the ethernet. It’s the cheap Belkin from WalMart, but I can’t see the model number.
I live-streamed about five football games, a lot of Youtube videos,and a Bollywood movie in the past two days on the WiFi laptop, without any dropout of signal, but it opens websites noticeably slowly (3-5 sec.).
Speeds are about 12-16 Mps on the ethernet, about 6 Mbps on the WiFil.
This is very strange. We have 2 other laptops. Those 2 laptops we cannot connect to the wifi. Either it connects and show limited activity or doesn’t connect at all.
The sager laptop however… has zero issues connecting to the wifi.
Can someone tell me why this is happening? I did unplug the wires for the modem, router and the VOIP but same issue.
So we have to used a wired connection with an ethernet cable for one of the other computers. The asus one can’t connect wifi so i want to use that, i have to do wired.
My iphone doesn’t even connect wifi either. If thats the case… why would my sager laptop have no issue with connecting to the wifi?
Your Sager might be connecting on a different frequency (2.4 vs 5) or maybe it’s using a security protocol (WPA2?) that the other laptops don’t support?
Were you able to try switching channels and/or frequencies on the router? You could try turning off dual-band* and limit it to either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, and then finding an open channel in the rooms that you want to use it in. (If you have an Android device, WiFi Analyzer is REALLY good for this; I don’t think there’s an equivalent for iPhone. Athena’s app might work.). You want to find the openest frequency and channel you can, and then limit the router to using that only. Essentially you would sacrifice some speed (you don’t need all that just for internet browsing unless you have gigabit internet from your ISP, and signal reliability is more important in this case). If 2.4 and 5 both have open channels, generally 5 has longer range in open areas but 2.4 goes through walls better.
*(I believe, but someone correct me if I’m wrong, that dual-band improves speed under ideal conditions when both frequencies are uncluttered and the connecting device supports dual-band connections. But in the real world, it’s unlikely for all of that to be true, and finding one reliable frequency band and channel tends to work better, sacrificing some excess speed for more reliability. That way even if your client is dual-band it doesn’t have to try to correct for packet loss on one band while the other is working fine.)
Another common thing that can interfere with WiFi are 2.4 or 5 GHz cordless phones… if you have any of those, try turning them off temporarily. And some microwaves can cause wifi disturbances while they’re cooking. And neighbors, and walls =/
Its wpa2 setting in all our laptops. Thats the setting that we connected to.
I dont know about my sager laptop… i never changed antying.
The thing is i never configured or done anything to this router myself. When optimum online came to our home, they installed and configured everything and said your connection is this and the password is in the back of the router thats in the sticker. Thus the router netgear n600 is the one optimum give us and its basically we get to use it until we dont keep optimum online anymore.
Yea we have the cordless phones. But the thing is this. We never had this wifi problem for many months already until recently.
I’m just confused how this suddenly happened. Also my iphone doesn’t connect either to the wifi. Just strange that the sager is the only thing that connects it. I mean if sager doesn’t connect it would make sense.
I’m a bit confused. So you had this router all along, or did you mean everything was connecting to a different router previously, and then Optimum came and gave you this new router, set up your one laptop to work with it, but none of the other devices?
If you are close to getting rid of your router anyways you might research if there is a way to upgrade the firmware. A firmware upgrade that doesn’t take could really screw it up but many times firmware upgrades have resulted in much better performance for me.
I have had a router get continuously more glitchy and unreliable and fixed it by doing a factory reset.
Neither of these things are specific to your router.
We moved to this house earlier this year. We then had to get optimum online to set internet here so they came set it up and they supplied us with the netgear n600 router. They did the installation and everything and said this is your network and this is the password and you cannot change the network name or the password. We had zero issues with the wifi until recently.
When i mentioned about my linksys wrt54g router, it was the router i used in the old apartment we had when we had road runner internet from time warner cable. We used the old router and it worked fine. I was going to buy a new router b/c that is a G router but optimum said they will supply us with a router so i figure great.
Well i can’t get rid of this router. We eventually will have to return it back to optimum onilne if we were to ever switch internet companies.
I had serious wifi sped issues with my laptop. I thought for sure the wifi portion of the motherboard had gone bye bye
Then I upgraded my laptops drivers. Problem fixed.
Worth checking into.
Ok, so with the new router in the new house: Did the other laptops EVER work with it? Did they suddenly stop working when they used to work before, or are these two new laptops you’re trying to connect to the network that’ve never been on it before?
The netgear n600 router is the only router we used in this house since we moved in. I never even tested the old linksys wrt54g router in this new house.
We been using the other laptops in this house since we moved in. The only issue it had was it would disconnect for few seconds then connect back again. But pretty much little to no issues at all. This started happening a few days ago.
Yes all our devices basically stopped working the last few days. Iphones as well. The only thing is the sager laptop works with the wifi which makes no sense because why is this the only device that can connect to the wifi.
That’s very odd. Have you spoken to Optimum about it yet? It almost sounds like they pushed out a configuration change to your router that caused problems with the other devices. Just a guess.