Wifi faster farther away from router???

Okay, this is driving me nuts and wondered if anyone else has experienced this...

My cable modem and router is located in my home office less than 8 feet from my desk. BUT my connection is slow as a dog when I am on my laptop on my desk. Opening an order takes more than 30 seconds for instance.

I pick up my laptop, carry it into my family room which is thru 3 walls and about 15 feet from the modem and router and everything is faster! An order (not same one from above since it would be cached) takes under 3 seconds to open.

Nothing else changes, just the distance from the router which *should* logically be faster in my office since I'm literally next to it.

Making it hard to actually work in my home office!! I've noticed this in the last 6 months or so. Resetting the router, rebooting the laptop, clearing dnscache, ipconfig etc makes NO difference.

Any clue? Do I need a better/new modem & router or what? Been using the one provided by my cable company for more than 3 years. If so, what is recommended?

My laptop an hp envy under a year old running windows 10. Thinking it is something to do with the router/modem rather than my laptop since it is uber responsive anywhere BUT my home office.

What type of wifi? G, N, AC? What bands are enabled? 2.4 and 5 GHz? What channel is being used? What else is in that room? What is the power level set to? How close are other neighbors to you?

The last three questions are more important then some of the others. .. . especially What else is in that room?

It could be something else in that room ro close to that room that is walking over your signal. In apartments sometimes your neighbor can be blasting their signal and stomping on your receive....
Personally I would log into the router and change some of the settings and especially look at signal strength. If your is set at a responsible level crank it up and see what happens.

Mike

Okay, you are a little beyond me on some of those questions lol.

I know it is 2.4 and 5 ghz cuz those lights are on on the router. Not an apartment, it's my 2600 square foot 2 story house (and the signal is stronger/faster upstairs too lol). It's set up on a private network with encryption and it is just me. My cell phone and 2 tablets are on the wifi network too, though not usually in the office. Only other electronics in my office are 2 brother wifi printers - a color and a bw. Have had the same set up though for years before this slow down craziness started.

Router says it is:

ARRIS DOCSIS 3.0 Touchstone Residential Gateway
HW_REV: 5
VENDOR: Arris Interactive, L.L.C.
BOOTR: 2.2.0.27
SW_REV: 9.1.103J4.SIP.PC20.TW
MODEL: DG1670A
Serial Number: E5PBUA69K594749

If that helps??

Power level is set to high, channel to auto. Not sure if it is N or G - pretty sure it is 1 of those 2, though the my computers card says it is AC (Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260)

Found wireless mode is set to A/N mixed so assuming it is N???

labeshops wrote:Okay, you are a little beyond me on some of those questions lol.

I know it is 2.4 and 5 ghz cuz those lights are on on the router. Not an apartment, it's my 2600 square foot 2 story house (and the signal is stronger/faster upstairs too lol). It's set up on a private network with encryption and it is just me. My cell phone and 2 tablets are on the wifi network too, though not usually in the office. Only other electronics in my office are 2 brother wifi printers - a color and a bw. Have had the same set up though for years before this slow down craziness started.

Router says it is:

VENDOR: Arris Interactive, L.L.C.
SW_REV: 9.1.103J4.SIP.PC20.TW
MODEL: DG1670A

If that helps??

Power level is set to high, channel to auto. Not sure if it is N or G - pretty sure it is 1 of those 2, though the my computers card says it is AC (Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260)

Found wireless mode is set to A/N mixed so assuming it is N???

Yes N. (802.11n) Dual band 2.4 and 5GHz.
When you look at available wifi hotspots are there any (many) around you that show up also with a strong signal?

Here is the problem.... It might be tough to isolate without being there. So my suggestion is to use your computer to show what other wifi spots are available, for a baseline.
Turn off EVERYTHING else in that room and see if things change. SOME devices also transmit their own hotspot (including cellular phones) this can interfere.

If nothing changes turn down the transmit power as the next test.

Lastly change the channel to a dedicated one: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/17 ... ht-channel

If after all that and it still doesn't work better... you have me stumped too

Mike

There are 4 other networks in the area, all secured, and all weak signals (1 bar or less) (neighbors I'm sure). I have hotpots disabled on my tablet and cell phone that supports them.

I'll try the other suggestions tomorrow and see if it helps. Thanks for the suggestions.

Thanks for the tips! It is definitely better! I've been tweaking things, set it to N only for one and that helped a lot!

One thing I noticed is that my closest neighbors router is showing 3 bar strength in my office only (it is 1 bar when in my family room but my office has windows that face his house), so thinking that is the culprit. The channels info in that article you linked says to change it to 1, 6 or 11 but my router doesn't show those channels. My router has channels 36, 40, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157, 161 or 165. Should I just try different ones til I find the optimum speed?

It is definitely better though! I can work at my desk again so thanks a ton!! Would not have thought changing the settings would help from one room to another

labeshops wrote:Thanks for the tips! It is definitely better! I've been tweaking things, set it to N only for one and that helped a lot!
One thing I noticed is that my closest neighbors router is showing 3 bar strength in my office only (it is 1 bar when in my family room but my office has windows that face his house), so thinking that is the culprit. The channels info in that article you linked says to change it to 1, 6 or 11 but my router doesn't show those channels. My router has channels 36, 40, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157, 161 or 165. Should I just try different ones til I find the optimum speed?

I suspect those are bonded channels for transmission to and from the ISP versus the transmit channel for the wifi radio. You may need to look elsewhere in the configs and it MAY be hidden under an "Auto" checkbox... i.e. some hide the selection if Auto is selected.

It is possible but 3 bars usually isn't enough to stomp on your signal but I will not argue with results.

labeshops wrote: It is definitely better though! I can work at my desk again so thanks a ton!! Would not have thought changing the settings would help from one room to another

Good. At least something worked!

Mike