WiFi disconnects every night?

Reba

Reba

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It seems like every night, between 10 pm and midnight (the time varies), I lose the internet on my home computers.

I have a desk top Windows 7 Pro, laptop Windows 7, and MacBookPro. The desk top has an ethernet connection. The two laptops are wifi. I also have two wifi printers.

For example:

I'll be checking emails or AD or surfing the web just fine when all of a sudden, I get the "no wifi" message, and the wifi icon goes "!" on my MacBook. I check the connections. My router network is connected but I get no wifi. I try to reconnect. Doesn't work. Eventually, I always have to go upstairs, crawl under the desk, disconnect the router and modem, wait, and power up again. Then, restart all the computers, the printers, and sometimes the Squeezebox (wifi radio).

My modem, router, and booster are all only a few months old.

It seems to happen late every night. I wonder if it's something that my service provider is doing? We have Time Warner Roadrunner for internet and TV cable. (Sometimes our TV resets itself, too; shuts down to a Cisco screen and reboots; sometimes with a new appearance of the menu.)

Sometimes the wired PC loses internet, sometimes not, at the same time as the wifi devices.

Maybe I should start keeping a log of this? :hmm:

It's very annoying. I'm too old to crawl under the desk at night (to be honest, if TCS is available I make him do it, heh, heh.)
 
Wirelessly posted

Have you tried to call your service provider to ask? They may be doing late night updates.
 
Not yet. I'll ask TCS to stop by there on his way home from work. It's just down the street from us, and we get quicker, better service if we go in person. No holding on the phone for some national call center that way. :)
 
is your computer that has connect to the plugged cord working, modem look good or router? the reason I asked, it happened to me a few times. Squirrels killed our wires outside of our houses. Good news we dont pay, the company paid for it. :D
 
It could be a few different things such as the provider, your modem or router firmware, your neighbors on the street now using more bandwidth, etc.

The first thing I would do is monitor the signal light on your modem at that time of night. If the light goes out during that time, the service provider is not sending a signal.

I would also go to the modem and router manufacturer sites and see if they have updated firmware.

Finally, if none of those things help, call the provider and see if there is enough of a signal going to your house. If more people on your street now have internet, they may need to boost the signal.
 
Frisky Feline said:
is your computer that has connect to the plugged cord working, modem look good or router? the reason I asked, it happened to me a few times. Squirrels killed our wires outside of our houses. Good news we dont pay, the company paid for it. :D
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I do worry about the cable itself that is exposed outdoors. It runs the length of our house and backyard to a big green box. We have a lot of rain (and squirrels). :giggle:

A few years ago we had them put in all new cable from the box to our house (the neighbor accidentally cut it when installing a fence, even though we had warned the fence installers). Like you said, it was no charge to us. However, it still just lies on the ground in all kinds of weather.

So far, I haven't noticed any squirrel chewing. They eat my bird seed and drink the hummingbird nectar (grrrr) but they don't seem interested in the cable. :D

Also, this seems to happen mostly late at night, after squirrel bedtime, and it comes back on after I reset it. If it was chewed thru, it wouldn't come back, so I don't think that's the problem.

I have to be careful checking the outside cable. I found two snakes in the yard recently, and sometimes they and cable can look the same under a bush. (One snake was harmless but the other one yesterday was a venomous cottonmouth.)
 
VacationGuy234 said:
It could be a few different things such as the provider, your modem or router firmware, your neighbors on the street now using more bandwidth, etc.

The first thing I would do is monitor the signal light on your modem at that time of night. If the light goes out during that time, the service provider is not sending a signal.
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I did see lights on the modem.

I would also go to the modem and router manufacturer sites and see if they have updated firmware.
Click to expand...
Will do.

Finally, if none of those things help, call the provider and see if there is enough of a signal going to your house. If more people on your street now have internet, they may need to boost the signal.
Click to expand...
Our immediate neighborhood hasn't increased population but it could be more people are using more devices.

I have noticed in past years that every so often the service would start to bog down, coinciding with new housing construction in the area. Then, I would see the cable trucks working in the area, and a few days later our service would speed up again. We went thru that cycle several times. I think each time a new housing development went in the cable company had to upgrade its service because it was spread too thin.

Maybe around 10 p.m. every night a group of neighborhood gamers go online together and drain everything from the rest of us? :giggle:
 
Reba said:
Maybe around 10 p.m. every night a group of neighborhood gamers go online together and drain everything from the rest of us? :giggle:
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That normally shouldn't cause your computer's connection to your router to drop. Even with no internet connection you should still always be connected to the network within your own house!

A lot of the suggestions I've found for similar problems involve changing the channel your router is broadcasting on in case something else is interfering. I'd be interested to know if a device connected directly to the route (with a network cable) loses its web connection when this happens too.
 
WiFi disconnect is usually on router side.

It means you need to check router setting.
 
metalangel said:
... I'd be interested to know if a device connected directly to the route (with a network cable) loses its web connection when this happens too.
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The only device directly connected to the router is the PC desktop computer. Every other device is wireless. Sometimes it goes offline but not every time that the wifi devices do.
 
Reba said:
What do I look for? Also, why does it happen at night?
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Change the WiFi channel to reduce the inference and reset the router.

You could test with modem only at night if they cause problem - use ethernet cable to your MacBook Pro.

If modem is rule out so it must be router or booster. Try take booster out and let run router only if you get same problem.

My WiFi was very slow because of inference so I changed the channel.
 
Foxrac said:
Change the WiFi channel to reduce the inference and reset the router.

You could test with modem only at night if they cause problem - use ethernet cable to your MacBook Pro.

If modem is rule out so it must be router or booster. Try take booster out and let run router only if you get same problem.

My WiFi was very slow because of inference so I changed the channel.
Click to expand...
What was causing the interference?
 
I've seen others post about this situation before, and I have experienced the exact same thing myself.

It took months to figure out the problem and effort along the way (e.g. replacing the modem, etc.), but bottom line, it was determined there were too many wireless connections throughout the house between all the computers, laptops, tv, VRS, etc. and the modem would just give up trying.

The solution? The cable company added a booster. It looks just like your cable with the cable "stuff" on one end, and the other end is an actual plug. Put the cable into an available cable outlet, and plug the other end into an outlet. It boosts the power being distributed among many connections.

Hope that might help. We got our booster through our cable provider - they were the ones to think of it and gave it to us free of charge.
 
AlleyCat said:
I've seen others post about this situation before, and I have experienced the exact same thing myself.

It took months to figure out the problem and effort along the way (e.g. replacing the modem, etc.), but bottom line, it was determined there were too many wireless connections throughout the house between all the computers, laptops, tv, VRS, etc. and the modem would just give up trying.

The solution? The cable company added a booster. It looks just like your cable with the cable "stuff" on one end, and the other end is an actual plug. Put the cable into an available cable outlet, and plug the other end into an outlet. It boosts the power being distributed among many connections.

Hope that might help. We got our booster through our cable provider - they were the ones to think of it and gave it to us free of charge.
Click to expand...
I do have a booster.

We do have multiple devices but we don't run them all at the same time. At most I would say we have two computers and one printer running.

Did your wifi go down the same time of day or did it vary?
 
Reba said:
I do have a booster.

We do have multiple devices but we don't run them all at the same time. At most I would say we have two computers and one printer running.

Did your wifi go down the same time of day or did it vary?
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It varied.

Probably late afternoon to early evenings were about the most common times. Comcast said it was because it'd been using wifi power all day and started fading.
 
AlleyCat said:
It varied.

Probably late afternoon to early evenings were about the most common times. Comcast said it was because it'd been using wifi power all day and started fading.
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Interesting.
 
I had router that keep disconnecting before, I checked the firmware to be sure it's up to date and there was one... that did fixed it. If this disconnecting persists, the router is on the way out.. time to get new one.

I had Dlink router (about 5 years old) that keep disconnecting, so I got a new one with Netgear and has been great since.
 
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