WiFi issues

Hey everyone, I’m dealing with some absolute nonsense with my Wi-Fi. Everything was running smooth as silk until my old router finally kicked the bucket, and I had to swap it out for this new Fritz router. Now, here’s the kicker: the signal strength looks amazing, like, perfect. Downstairs, everything is working just fine, but once you head upstairs, it’s a whole different disaster. Like I said, the bars are full and I’m technically "connected" to the Wi-Fi, but nothing actually works! It just cuts out randomly—I'll be connected but can't load a single damn webpage, then it hangs for a few minutes before suddenly hitting me with that "limited access" error. I even had an ISP technician come out to my place, but honestly, they were useless and couldn't figure out what the hell is going wrong. I'm turning to you guys because I am seriously about to lose my mind here. To put it bluntly, I've got a full signal, but the connection is basically a total ghost town. 🎉 Thanks in advance!

Ashley Fisher52 said:Hey everyone, I’m dealing with some absolute nonsense with my Wi-Fi. Everything was running smooth as silk until my old router finally kicked the bucket, and I had to swap it out for this new Fritz router. Now, here’s the kicker: the signal strength looks amazing, like, perfect. Downstairs, everything is working just fine, but once you head upstairs, it’s a whole different disaster. Like I said, the bars are full and I’m technically "connected" to the Wi-Fi, but nothing actually works! It just cuts out randomly—I'll be connected but can't load a single damn webpage, then it hangs for a few minutes before suddenly hitting me with that "limited access" error. I even had an ISP technician come out to my place, but honestly, they were useless and couldn't figure out what the hell is going wrong. I'm turning to you guys because I am seriously about to lose my mind here. To put it bluntly, I've got a full signal, but the connection is basically a total ghost town. 🎉 Thanks in advance!

Is this happening on just one device, or is it affecting every single thing you've got upstairs?

Lawrence Barnes64 said:Is this happening on just one device, or is it affecting every single thing you've got upstairs?

It’s happening on every single device, man—it’s totally inconsistent, constantly cutting in and out, but honestly, it’s mostly just dead most of the time.

Ashley Fisher52 said:It’s happening on every single device, man—it’s totally inconsistent, constantly cutting in and out, but honestly, it’s mostly just dead most of the time.

I honestly don't get how everything is working perfectly downstairs while upstairs the signal is just hit-or-miss and totally unreliable...

Look, maybe try jumping into your router settings and crank that signal strength up to max, regardless of what it says right now; I think most of them ship out set at like 50% by default, so just bump it to 100% and see if that helps, and hey, check which Wi-Fi standard you're even running... you didn't actually mention the exact model you're using, either.😁

Lawrence Barnes64 said:I honestly don't get how everything is working perfectly downstairs while upstairs the signal is just hit-or-miss and totally unreliable...

Look, maybe try jumping into your router settings and crank that signal strength up to max, regardless of what it says right now; I think most of them ship out set at like 50% by default, so just bump it to 100% and see if that helps, and hey, check which Wi-Fi standard you're even running... you didn't actually mention the exact model you're using, either.😁

It’s a total circus, seriously, I can't even wrap my head around what's going wrong here! The only thing that makes any sense to me is if the devices are all tripping over each other with IP address conflicts since they swapped out the router—is that even a thing!? It has to be something like that because everything was running perfectly smooth until they replaced the hardware, and now even though the signal looks great, it's basically useless.
The router is a Fritz router

Ashley Fisher52 said:It’s a total circus, seriously, I can't even wrap my head around what's going wrong here! The only thing that makes any sense to me is if the devices are all tripping over each other with IP address conflicts since they swapped out the router—is that even a thing!? It has to be something like that because everything was running perfectly smooth until they replaced the hardware, and now even though the signal looks great, it's basically useless.
The router is a Fritz router

It’s possible there’s an addressing conflict, but it really shouldn't be happening... maybe try logging into your modem settings and check the signal strength and the Wi-Fi standard. The IP address should be 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 and the password is just admin

Lawrence Barnes64 said:It’s possible there’s an addressing conflict, but it really shouldn't be happening... maybe try logging into your modem settings and check the signal strength and the Wi-Fi standard. The IP address should be 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 and the password is just admin

The signal is at a full 100%, but the Wi-Fi standard is showing up as 802.11n+g+b. Is that actually okay, or am I screwed?

Ashley Fisher52 said:The signal is at a full 100%, but the Wi-Fi standard is showing up as 802.11n+g+b. Is that actually okay, or am I screwed?

Well, there you go🙂 but we're still stuck in the same spot... I honestly don't even know what else to tell you, man, it feels like the technicians over at Comcast should be the ones stepping up to fix this mess, or maybe someone with half a brain, maybe 😁Lawrence Barnes64
will chime in.

Lawrence Barnes64 said:Well, there you go🙂 but we're still stuck in the same spot... I honestly don't even know what else to tell you, man, it feels like the technicians over at Comcast should be the ones stepping up to fix this mess, or maybe someone with half a brain, maybe 😁Lawrence Barnes64
will chime in.

I mean, the service techs have already been out here a million times, they show up, charge me a $50 service fee, do absolutely nothing to fix the issue, and then just bail, and it just keeps going on and on like this! Hopefully, someone around here actually knows how to tackle this mess, but hey, thanks for trying anyway 👍

...try flipping those antennas to a horizontal position for the 2.4 band, and maybe try the device antennas on the other floor too. Let me know if you notice any actual difference in the signal strength?
See, those tiny little antennas tend to bleed signal up and down when they’re pointing straight up. So, by tilting them this way, you should be able to grab a much better signal.

wearymason4 said:...try flipping those antennas to a horizontal position for the 2.4 band, and maybe try the device antennas on the other floor too. Let me know if you notice any actual difference in the signal strength?
See, those tiny little antennas tend to bleed signal up and down when they’re pointing straight up. So, by tilting them this way, you should be able to grab a much better signal.

Look, the signal isn't even the issue here—the bars are full and I'm technically "connected," but it's all useless! It either says "limited access" or nothing at all, but I can't load a single damn webpage; the connection basically doesn't exist. If it were just one gadget acting up, I'd figure it was just my laptop or phone being glitchy, but since this is happening on three different laptops and three different phones simultaneously, the problem is clearly with the internet service itself, not my gear.

Ashley Fisher52 said:Look, the signal isn't even the issue here—the bars are full and I'm technically "connected," but it's all useless! It either says "limited access" or nothing at all, but I can't load a single damn webpage; the connection basically doesn't exist. If it were just one gadget acting up, I'd figure it was just my laptop or phone being glitchy, but since this is happening on three different laptops and three different phones simultaneously, the problem is clearly with the internet service itself, not my gear.

Who's your ISP? Or where are you even located? You mentioned paying in Euros—are you living in Germany?
Some providers actually cap the number of devices that can connect to their wireless router at once.
Or maybe someone in the house is throttling it. (Like a son who needs all the bandwidth for torrenting or whatever).

It’s going to be hard for anyone to diagnose this blindly if even the official techs from the company you're paying aren't able to fix it.

And seriously, how does a provider you pay come out "countless times," take $50 from you, and leave without fixing a damn thing? I wish I could get paid to do absolutely nothing. 🙂

I honestly think you’re just dealing with some intermittent connection drops, nothing more complicated than that. That said, if you want to troubleshoot it further, you could try manually assigning a static IP address through your network adapter settings, or see if your router allows you to force the wireless mode to strictly b/g instead of using the higher standards.

shadowlynx102 said:I honestly think you’re just dealing with some intermittent connection drops, nothing more complicated than that. That said, if you want to troubleshoot it further, you could try manually assigning a static IP address through your network adapter settings, or see if your router allows you to force the wireless mode to strictly b/g instead of using the higher standards.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact cause without more info. He mentions things cutting out "upstairs," but everything works fine "downstairs." If that's the case, the signal isn't dropping for everyone in the house.
From what I gather, he's got multiple devices both upstairs and downstairs. If everyone upstairs is losing connection while everyone downstairs stays online, we need to figure out what those upstairs devices have in common.

It’s pretty obvious that the connection is going to drop when the signal gets weak, and honestly, you can't expect much strength on an upper floor if the router is tucked away in the basement.

shadowlynx102 said:It’s pretty obvious that the connection is going to drop when the signal gets weak, and honestly, you can't expect much strength on an upper floor if the router is tucked away in the basement.

He’s claiming the signal strength is great, yet the connection keeps dropping. He also mentioned everything worked perfectly with his old router and these issues only started once this new one showed up.

Which pretty much implies it isn't a signal strength issue.