Is your WiFi slow? Experiencing weak signals at the far end of your house? Read on to find out how you can drastically improve your WiFi performance without buying new hardware.

Recently, I had a conversation with Patrick, who was experiencing slow WiFi and weak signal issues in his home. Here’s a summary of the steps we took to resolve these issues effectively:

Initial Setup and Issues:

• Equipment:
  • Arris cable modem
  • Netgear R7800 Nighthawk router
• Configuration:
  • Both the modem and the router were running two SSIDs each (2.4GHz and 5GHz), one of which overlapped and likely caused interference.
• Internet Plan:
  • Sparklight 600Mbps down / 30Mbps up
• Initial Speed Test:
  • Ethernet connection to modem: 320Mbps down / 23Mbps up
  • WiFi throughout the house showed significant performance drops, especially in distant rooms.

Steps Taken:

1. Diagnosing the Modem:

• Found consistent T3 timeout errors in the modem’s logs, correlating with streaming interruptions.
• Contacted Sparklight to send a technician to diagnose and fix the infrastructure issues causing these timeouts.

2. WiFi Speed Tests:

• Used iPerf3 to perform WiFi speed tests throughout the house.
• Noted significant drop-offs in speed in rooms further from the modem. Some rooms were only getting 20Mbps and one room in particular had no WiFi signal at all.

3. Router Configuration:

• Disabled the modem’s WiFi to reduce interference.
• Configured the Nighthawk router to use 40MHz bandwidth on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands for initial performance assessment.

4. Performance Testing:

• Baseline speed next to the router: 220Mbps
• Noted good performance in all rooms, including the room that no WiFi signal before.
• Adjusted the 5GHz band to 80MHz, tested again, and found strong signal areas performed well (500Mbps range). However, weaker signal areas performed better at 40MHz, so reverted back to 40MHz for reliability.

5. Final Results:

• Tested all devices in the house (doorbell, laptops, phones, TVs).
• Achieved significant performance improvement without any new hardware.
• Streaming and browsing became much faster and more reliable.
• All rooms in the house had sufficient performance and did not need any additional hardware.

Outcome:

• After optimizing the existing Netgear Nighthawk router, Patrick’s internet performance and reliability saw a drastic increase.
• Scheduled Sparklight technician visit should further resolve any underlying infrastructure issues, ensuring continued high performance.

Takeaway:

• Before purchasing new hardware, consider optimizing your existing equipment. Simple configuration changes and proper diagnosis can lead to significant improvements in WiFi performance and reliability.

Stay tuned for more tips on optimizing your home network!

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For more details and personalized consultations, feel free to contact us at https://www.boisehomewifi.com/.