The network shuts down intermittently, losing connectivity every few minutes.
The network shuts down intermittently, losing connectivity every few minutes.
Over the past months, my internet has been dropping intermittently, regardless of activity or device. I usually connect via Wi-Fi, but it works fine on wireless and Ethernet connections. Speeds remain strong, around 200 Mbps on Wi-Fi. The issue appears to occur suddenly and without warning. I notice no changes in router lights during these drops. Initially, I assumed the problem was with my ISP, since disconnections are more frequent on weekends and nights. Recently, I’ve recorded the timing of these outages, which seem to happen roughly every ten minutes, with occasional longer breaks. When I unplugged a nearby Wi-Fi extender, the connection improved slightly. This suggests there might be too many devices on my network. Last check showed about 25 devices connected. What might be causing this, and how can I fix it?
Wi-fi extender tends to make things worse because it just make another 'noise' on the air. In fact, this is one of the good reason why. Router/AP for houses usually would be clogging so much on their performance while too many devices connected, especially when there's not enough bandwidth for all of it. I've got a case when a bunch of my big family's coming to one house, around 20-25 people maybe, the wi-fi is just unusable at all and only 2-3 devices got the YouTube streaming going on. Worse, is the wi-fi extender itself, as I said, made another 'noise' because it adds additional 'process' of re-transmit and re-receive, which made the 'noise'. Quick fix would be replacing the router/AP to the better one (consider use an 802.11ac AP/router, or even 802.11ax one if your devices support it), probably prioritize to use 5GHz than 2.4GHz, and stop using that extender. And limit on how many the wi-fi devices connected, even as much as 5 devices some performance can be really shitty. You can consider using Wifi Analyzer (free download on Play Store) to analyze the air of which wi-fi channel is congested. 2.4GHz are usually so congested if there's a lot of wi-fi around your house (depends on the area). You can extend the wi-fi range with an another AP with wired connection and of course on the different channel than the main wi-fi one (otherwise it'll interfere each other), and this would be lot reliable than using wi-fi extender as the data coming through the secondary AP would be on the wire, not 'noising' the air anymore. I doubt if there's really 25 people connecting on the same time (otherwise, as the same case as mine, wi-fi would be unusable at all), probably in your case around 3-8 on the same time.