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afflik1923Flag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Wireless interference issues

Hello,

A client of ours has an issue that at around 12pm and 4pm they have problems with their internet via wifi, everyone connected via cable is fine.  They are still connected to the wifi router, signal strength is fine, but that cannot even ping the router, this lasts for about 15 minuets then the issue resolves itself.
We have installed another AP as a test and users connected to either of them have the same issue at the same time.  They are both located in the same part of the building.

We believe there must be some kind of interference, so we have put a windows XP machine in the Office with a Wireless dongle so we can run some scans/tests.

Can anyone suggest the best piece of software to use to find what is causing the interference?  Preferably free.

Thank you
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John
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I would look first at changing your wireless channel to avoid interference.

Get inSSIDer3 from MetaGeek and look see what other wireless is around and what channels they are on.

... Thinkpads_User
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One of our AP's is on 1 and the other on 11.

I have already run inSSIDer It finds over 30 SSID's in the office.  they are all spread through out the channel range.

We have spoken to other people in the building and only our client in their corner of the building has this problem.  Also with inSSIDer I cannot find a way to leave it scanning and be able to see the information that's older than 5 minutes.

I would love to have something that can be left scanning for a couple of days and then I could go through the information and try to work out the issue.
It certainly seems like interference. I would take one machine and work through as many channels as you can.

I will look through inSSider settings in a couple of hours.
.... Thinkpads_User
@afflik1923

1. inSSider 3:  Apparently the free version only shows a few minutes (right hand graph). It might be worth watching the lower right at the time of interference to see if something pops in and then at what channel.

2. Channels:  I see here I am on Channel 6 whereas other nearby signals are on 1 and 11+7. I think trying other channels would be worth your time.

Get a good additional access point, one that can be a spare, and install it, update the firmware and set it for a channel not 1 or 11 and test with one workstation over the troubled period.

Metageek offers inSSider 3 Professional. It is not free, but it may be worth checking out the specs on it.

... Thinkpads_User
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Jakob Digranes
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Thanks for all your input guys, I am away for a couple of days and will pick this up again on Tuesday of next week.

Thanks
Are there any microwaves close by?  12pm and 4pm sound like around the time someone is cooking :-)
Hi Guys,

Am back and will continue with this today.

We don't believe there are any microwaves, but that's what we are trying to rule out.
The Fluke Aircheck handheld will scan for non 802.11 interference but it isn't cheap.
I would ask around - see what's happening specifically at those times.  Ask everyone... the cleaners, the catering staff, the receptionists... basically anyone you pass.  Something must be happening if the time is predictable.

Just to add to what Rick_O_Shay said, you can rent a Fluke Aircheck if you don't want to purchase one.
I have sent a survey to the clients for them to note down when they have any problems, by plotting each issues hopefully I should see a pattern.

I was not aware rental was an option.  I will look into this now.