Serious Wireless interference issues… :(
December 12th, 2013
Is there something that we can do or we can buy (I know there are these plugs where you plug one into the mains with a Ethernet cable into the router and then there is a corresponding plug that goes into another plug socket (in say a bedroom where the laptop and xbox is) that (I’m not too sure here) gives out a WiFi signal which can be used… However we will need 6 of these and the router only has 4 Ethernet ports (for the cables) in the back of the router.
The router is the Virgin Media super hub
Thanks for any help with this matter.
(I know there are these plugs where you plug one into the mains with a Ethernet cable into the router and then there is a corresponding plug that goes into another plug socket (in say a bedroom where the laptop and xbox is) that (I’m not too sure here) gives out a WiFi signal which can be used
It’s called Ethernet over power lines,And you are wrong on the last part,It only gives an Ethernet port!
You should get the WD Livewire,You get 2 boxes,Each has to be plugged into power & Has 4 Ethernet ports,You put one box in
the same room as the router and hook it up to it and you put the other one in any other room,Configuration is simple by a click
of a button on the box itself,None needed on the computers/gaming consoles,So to sum it up,You’d have 3 additional Ethernet
ports locally (on the router room) as 1 of em would be used for the router connection + 4 on the other one in the other room.
Do keep in mind that you might need to buy additional Ethernet cables,It only comes with 2 of em which is good enough
for the initial connection+1 device,Do keep in mind that the speed varies and depends on the electrical circuits,But odds
are the difference is not gonna be too significant.
Link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Livewire-Powerline-Network-Ports-Twin/dp/B003YFHD1W/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1317600034&sr=8-3
I think the main problem is Virgin. Their traffic management sucks and they will cap you to 10% of your 50 meg (5 meg) if you download more than 4 or 5 GB during the day.
I’ll come back and edit this post tomorrow, as I have to go to bed, have work in 5 hours
gilly replied: I think the main problem is Virgin. Their traffic management sucks and they will cap you to 10% of your 50 meg (5 meg) if you download more than 4 or 5 GB during the day.
I don’t think traffic shaping has anything to do with it,He mentioned that the speed is significantly better wired than wireless.
Yea the speed is amazing with on 5Ghz or with a ethernet cable from the router
The only problem with the WD Livewire boxes is phone cant be connected by the cable… But i suppose its not too bad as they are only used for downloading apps and internet (which is fine in small ammounts)
There are 6 of us in the house so although it would work, it would only work for 4 of us (if we spent £70 on our own.)
Thanks for the help so far guys, definatly learnt from this. But £70 is a lot for a student, thats like food for 3 weeks ha ha.
-wiseman- replied: The only problem with the WD Livewire boxes is phone cant be connected by the cable
Uh? How on earth does the phone has anything to do with it? It’s just 2 boxes,One of which connects to the router
to get the connectivity from,It’s not a complete replacement to what you already have,Just an addition.
-wiseman- replied: There are 6 of us in the house so although it would work, it would only work for 4 of us (if we spent £70 on our own.)
It’d help if you could be more specific,I mean like:
Room 1 – Desktop PC,Laptop
Room 2 – Xbox,Laptop
Etc,Also specify in which room the router is located in.
Have you tried walking closer within 2m of the wireless router and see if signal / speed improves? Might also be worth to check with a neighbour if they have similar issue (provided you know them well ). If your router is dual mode, might just enable 5Ghz as well so those that can make use of it can, kinda solve half the problem.
Roberto400 replied:
-wiseman- replied: There are 6 of us in the house so although it would work, it would only work for 4 of us (if we spent £70 on our own.)
It'd help if you could be more specific,I mean like:
Room 1 - Desktop PC,Laptop
Room 2 - Xbox,Laptop
Etc,Also specify in which room the router is located in.
This would be extremely useful.
If you went down the Homeplug route, check out this place first, then see if you can get cheaper,
http://www.faculty-x.net
You can get them with mains pass through, just incase there is a lack of sockets, (you shouldn’t use extensions or surge protection etc) and I believe the 85mbps ones actually give a throughput of around 15mbps, so you would need at least the 200mbps ones.
catfish replied:
If your router is dual mode, might just enable 5Ghz as well so those that can make use of it can, kinda solve half the problem.
Virgin Media’s Super Hub is the Netgear CG3101D – you can have one band or the other.
A cheaper option might be to persuade the landlord to wire up the house, or do it yourself, you can use CW1308 phone cable (up to 100mbps only needs 4-cores not 8 and it’s much easier to fit) .
Roberto400 replied: -wiseman- replied: The only problem with the WD Livewire boxes is phone cant be connected by the cable
Uh? How on earth does the phone has anything to do with it? It's just 2 boxes,One of which connects to the router
to get the connectivity from,It's not a complete replacement to what you already have,Just an addition.
-wiseman- replied: There are 6 of us in the house so although it would work, it would only work for 4 of us (if we spent £70 on our own.)
It'd help if you could be more specific,I mean like:
Room 1 - Desktop PC,Laptop
Room 2 - Xbox,Laptop
Etc,Also specify in which room the router is located in.
Mobile phones connected to WiFi as not to run up a nice bill using phone internet to download apps/internet stuff.
The rooms are set up roughly the same so these set up is the same for all 6 of us
Bedroom – (all 6 of us have roughly the same) 1 Xbox. 1 Laptop. 1 Mobile Phone. (one of us also has a Ipad)
Living Room – Router (its where the fiber optic cable is so we cant move the Router
So there are 3 devices in each room 2 of which can use a Ethernet cable to get Internet and Mobile Phones which need a Wireless signal.
catfish replied: Have you tried walking closer within 2m of the wireless router and see if signal / speed improves? Might also be worth to check with a neighbour if they have similar issue (provided you know them well ). If your router is dual mode, might just enable 5Ghz as well so those that can make use of it can, kinda solve half the problem.
As far as moving closer to the router, If im next to the router (like 1m away) there internet is better but its still not as good as being phisically connected to the router
Im not sure if there is a duel mode for both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz… I will take a look as this can be used as a tempory messure until we can get it working fully.
From a few posts I have read on Virgins forum, lots of people have issues with the wireless on that particular “superhub” (Netgear CG3101D ) I have seen posts saying there will be new firmware, but I cannot find it posted anywhere.
One example is here
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-30Mb-and-50Mb-broadband/SuperHub-configuration/m-p/330165
It may just come down to using a different router for wireless as in the post above.
Edit – or you could try a 9 or 12dbi Antenna on the superhub, see if that improves the signal.
When you ran inSSIDer 2 – does that show what type of connections your neighbours are using, most specifically are there many using Wireless N ?
Yep,Seems multiple ppl had issues with this one,But I’m not entirely sure if it’s his job to fix it,Clearly
if he paid for the router it is,But if he’s leasing it,It’s up to virgin media to fix it (without further cost)
Will have a look at the work arround.
failing that will have to see if the house will buy a new router… or just a modem
Are there any you suggest? (for £120 or less)
Roberto400 replied: Yep,Seems multiple ppl had issues with this one,But I'm not entirely sure if it's his job to fix it,Clearly
if he paid for the router it is,But if he's leasing it,It's up to virgin media to fix it (without further cost)
Virgin are notorious for poor customer service, as are most UK ISP’s. I don’t even think they will do anything as they have supplied a “working” superhub – just that it’s not good enough for wiseman’s needs.
-wiseman- replied: Will have a look at the work arround.
failing that will have to see if the house will buy a new router... or just a modem
Are there any you suggest? (for £120 or less)
Have a look as I suggested and see how many people are using Wireless N in your area.
You can get plenty of routers for less than £120.
Can you borrow a decent wireless G router from someone to try with your superhub in their “bridge mode” workaround (above)?
What type of router/access point are you using? If it allow third party firmware, or is a noteworthy brand, it might allow you to adjust your antenna gain.
DeMiNe0 replied: What type of router/access point are you using? If it allow third party firmware, or is a noteworthy brand, it might allow you to adjust your antenna gain.
He’s using a Netgear CG3101D with his cable company’s (Virgin media) custom firmware, as far as I can see, there is no 3rd party firmware you can use.
eg. This thread were people have been complaining about it for ever and the discussion goes on to buying new washing lines (out of sheer boredom I presume)…
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33676152-vmng300-page-46.html
I find multiple posts saying Virgin are releasing an upgraded firmware in Q2 2011 – but it hasn’t been done.
Ive tried to connect a second router and use the VM router as a modem only… But still no luck we could not even get internet…
We will ring virgin media and see if they can send out a router thats not this ~ Lovely ~ superhub rubbish
1. Connect the “superhub” directly to your PC/Laptop by Ethernet,Enter it’s web interface and disable wireless.
2. Connect the 2nd router directly,Enter it’s interface and define the wireless accordingly,Also make sure the connection
type is set to automatic,dynamic ip or dhcp.
3. Connect the 2nd router to the “superhub” and it should all work fine.
Roberto400 replied: 1. Connect the "superhub" directly to your PC/Laptop by Ethernet,Enter it's web interface and disable wireless.
2. Connect the 2nd router directly,Enter it's interface and define the wireless accordingly,Also make sure the connection
type is set to automatic,dynamic ip or dhcp.
3. Connect the 2nd router to the "superhub" and it should all work fine.
That is how I usually do it, however, I do not know the settings to use with Virgin, when I did this first I had to get a static IP from my ISP, and they just gave me the settings to use in the router. Perhaps wiseman can get the exact settings on the Virgin forum from the many other peoples posts who have done the same thing.
This is the “top new router” apparently in the UK, according to reviews.
ASUS RT-N56U £85 (cheapest I can find)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/RT-N56u-Processor-Hardware-Internal-Antennas/dp/B004TPWRSK
Cheaper than I paid for my Netgear I think.
I will ask around in work tomorrow what routers people are using on their Virgin connections.
*EDIT – the people I have spoken to who had simlar problems, are either using the same router as myself (Netgear WNR 3500), the Asus posted above, a different Netgear router but the guy couldn’t remember the model, but all have gone to wireless N.
This in your case would work out on the expensive side for you guys, having to either use dongles or upgrade the wi-fi cards in your laptops, puters etc.
gilly replied: Roberto400 replied: 1. Connect the "superhub" directly to your PC/Laptop by Ethernet,Enter it's web interface and disable wireless.
2. Connect the 2nd router directly,Enter it's interface and define the wireless accordingly,Also make sure the connection
type is set to automatic,dynamic ip or dhcp.
3. Connect the 2nd router to the "superhub" and it should all work fine.
That is how I usually do it, however, I do not know the settings to use with Virgin, when I did this first I had to get a static IP from my ISP, and they just gave me the settings to use in the router. Perhaps wiseman can get the exact settings on the Virgin forum from the many other peoples posts who have done the same thing.
This is the "top new router" apparently in the UK, according to reviews.
ASUS RT-N56U £85 (cheapest I can find)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/RT-N56u-Processor-Hardware-Internal-Antennas/dp/B004TPWRSK
Cheaper than I paid for my Netgear I think.
I will ask around in work tomorrow what routers people are using on their Virgin connections.
*EDIT - the people I have spoken to who had simlar problems, are either using the same router as myself (Netgear WNR 3500), the Asus posted above, a different Netgear router but the guy couldn't remember the model, but all have gone to wireless N.
This in your case would work out on the expensive side for you guys, having to either use dongles or upgrade the wi-fi cards in your laptops, puters etc.
We are going to Ring virgin to see if they can send out a new (not the ~ Lovely ~ superhub) router… But that is a nice looking router… We have tried to use the superhub as a modem and using a 2nd router but that does not work… We get LAN but no WAN… The funny thing is (its not rearly that funny) but its costing us over £400 for the internet and so far im yet to see what it is exactly im paying for over wireless… Virgin need to sort there selfs out…
-wiseman- replied:
We are going to Ring virgin to see if they can send out a new (not the ~ Lovely ~ superhub) router... But that is a nice looking router... We have tried to use the superhub as a modem and using a 2nd router but that does not work... We get LAN but no WAN... The funny thing is (its not rearly that funny) but its costing us over £400 for the internet and so far im yet to see what it is exactly im paying for over wireless... Virgin need to sort there selfs out...
Best of luck with that
You may be just unlucky enough to be in a very congested area, leaving you with very little option but to stay for some things on 2.4 GHz but on wireless N (at 300mbps), (costing a lot more for extra cards/dongles and xbox adapters) or having a wired set-up.