Hi all
This is such a weird problem, it's going to take me a while to explain it
but if anyone is willing to offer a solution, I'd love to hear. The
problem: All of a sudden, our wifi has become really bad - disconnecting 2-3
times every 10 seconds. As it came on so quickly (about 6 weeks ago), I
put it down to bad weather (however sketchy that myth may be). But now, as
a result of a lot of testing yesterday, I've determined that it's to do with
the cabled side of the LAN. Please read on.
On my home LAN, I have 2 routers - on both of which I have the WiFi
disabled. This is deliberate because I don't want the WiFi "fighting" with
each other over channels etc. I realise I could manually set to different
channels but bear with me. I repeat - there is no WiFi enabled on either
router. The WiFi we have comes from 3 access points scattered around the
house. Each device (all TP-Link) is in Access Point mode and setup with its
own static IP on the LAN. There are no IP conflicts between the APs and
the routers - I have checked.
One of the 2 routers I have is a BT Home Hub 5. It's required to have a
DHCP server enabled as, without it, our BT Vision box won't work. Mindful
of this, I've disabled DHCP on my other router.
Now, with thanks for reading this far, if I allow the BT router to be on at
the same time as the other router, our WiFi is awful. Switch off the BT
router and all works well. Conclusion: the BT router is not happy playing
with the APs. But here's the real issue. I have configured the APs to
use the non-BT router as their gateway and DNS. Therefore, while they are
on the same physical network - they should never need to "touch" the BT
router. I have also, obviously, disabled DHCP server on all APs so it
can't be some sort of DHCP conflict.
Why would the existence of a wired router (remember its wifi is disabled)
cause such disconnects to devices connecting to _all_ of my WiFi access
points when it's switched on? It has to be the BT router at the (pardon
the pun) root of this doesn't it?
I've read about "Double NAT translation" so I've moved the BT router to
another network i.e. 192.168.1.x instead of what it used to be: 192.168.0.x
and that's made no difference either. FWIW the non-BT router is on the
192.168.0.x network.
I have to have both routers switched on and the BT router has to have DHCP
enabled for the BT vision box but, as I say, the BT router is the only DHCP
server on the LAN. I've proved this by trying to connect a device via DHCP
with the BT router off and it fails so it's definitely not a DHCP issue.
Anything I could usefully try would be very welcome. It's driving my kids
mad!
Cheers
R
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