inSSID - Amplitude out of range

[KleinFritzchen]

Hi friends,
I've much trubble with my internetradio.
Often I get the message, that the WLAN-connection is broken.
The distance thru the router is about 4 meters!!!
Now I'd installed inSSIDer 2 on my laptop with integratet WLAN-receiver and found, that there are any networks become from time to time a amplitude over -10 dB, so that my WLAN crashes.
The normal state shows attachement "Amplitude in normal range", but have a look at the blue network in attachement "Amplitude out of normal range".
If you can see in "Timegraph" (I traced it at 4 Hour in the morning)., there are many amplitudes near the border.
In fact, there are abot three networkes where this happens from time to time .
Can someone give me a hint, what is the reason?
The distance to "Malernetwork" (the green network) is about 80 meters. I don't anderstand.
Or can there be a error between my WLAN-receiver and inSSIDer?
My Networkname is "Samson's Home Network" and is stable over the measurement period.
But the problems with my Internet receiver can actually be just this one conclusion.
I changed the channel (the pictures have already been made with the new channel) and now I have no more crashes.

Regards

Fritz

[CyberShark]

I just have to respond to this thread since the same thing is happening to me. If I need to start a separate thread, please say so and I will. I just didn't want to clutter the forum with same/like questions.

In my case, I know for sure that the situation has been fine up untill 1 or 2 weeks ago. This, since I sometimes run inSSIDer regularly just to see if all is ok, or if anomally's pop up. I sometimes saw the occasional peak or low from time to time on networks nearby but NOTHING like what is happening now. Check the attachment:



Download speeds are VERY low (2MB/s was normal here) and I notice (using NetMeter) that the UL/DL tend to climb for a bit and then all of a sudden drop to 0. Climb up again a bit (200 to 300 kb/s) and then drop to 0 again. I believe those rises and falls to coincide with the other networks in my neighbourhood that spike and come down as can be seen in the graph.

The (to me) "strange" thing is that my own network in the graph does not seem to be affected. Or, I should say, does not seem to peak but is fairly stable at around -50dB (speedfreak = ssid). Since I do stream a lot of politics, seminars, news, etc. it is very irritating when the connection drops all the time. Now I am online via a 20m utp cable on my laptop.

Am I correct in suspecting that one or more routers are "screaming" to each other? And why is/could that be *all of a sudden*? Is it likely that others in my neighbourhood are experiencing a similar bad connection? If so, it might be easier to drop a note in some mailboxes and ask which people are experiencing bad connections and to structure the connections/channels a bit better.
How are these peaks caused? Is it by power adapters? Other routers? Why only some devices that start to scream and not all? I understand it is impossible to pinpoint for people here, but I'd like to get a better understanding, that's all. And of course, if possible, solve the problem!

[Trent]

From my understanding this is not an issue of screaming APs but a problem in inSSIDer. Since the RSSI values are in the negatives, when inSSIDer receives a null value or zero, it puts it all the way at the top. This often occurs with certain kinds of cards and can be resolved by using a new USB Wi-Fi dongle and the windows auto config.

[Brian.Cockburn]

Hi, I have just installed inSSIDer on a W7 Sony Vaio laptop here at the office and find two problems.

The first is that a nearby Access Point (AP), which is about 0.5 metres away, consistently has an RSSI of -8 dBm (not dB as the graphs in the UI show). This causes a problem with both the Time Graph tab and the Channels tab because its upper value is -10 dBm. Is there a way to change the upper bound of the graphs so that it is high enough to show my AP? On the Time Graph tab my AP is completely invisible because it is always outside the graph's boundary. On the Channels tab my AP is only partly visible with the sides of the plot visible but no top line and hence no name either. These both seem like quite serious shortcomings to me. It would be nice if the vertical axis either went up as far as +5 dBm or was able to automatically scale itself to about 10 dBm higher than the highest recorded value - this would ensure that the graph was always making the best use of the available screen and also always showed everything.

The second problem is that some APs seem to 'pulse' irregularly from normal values around -50 dBm to -65 dBm to 0 dBm. These pulses are around 3 or 4 seconds in duration and are averaging around 50 to 60 per hour.

Thanks, Brian.

[Trent]

What power setting do you have your AP on? It shouldn't be going as high as -8dBm (legally in the US).

As far as the irregular pulses, I'm fairly certain that the pulsing are a result of the wireless card and not of the software.

[Brian.Cockburn]

What power setting do you have your AP on? It shouldn't be going as high as -8dBm (legally in the US).

As far as the irregular pulses, I'm fairly certain that the pulsing are a result of the wireless card and not of the software.

Hi Trent,

I don't believe that my AP, which is a Buffalo WHR-G300N, has a power setting control. And since I'm in the UK the FCC's rules are not all that important to me. :-) I'll look into the local rules at a later time.

I guessed that the pulsing might be inSSIDer just reporting what the interface said. The Windows device manager reports the interface as a "Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 4965AGN". Has this pulsing been reported by other users?

Thanks, Brian.

[Brian.Cockburn]

Hi Trent,

Does my previous posting count as a formal bug report for your bug-tracking system? Or is there a (separate) way for me to formally report the bug?

Thanks, Brian.

[Trent]

Great question, the best way to get an issue reported is to post it here: https://github.com/metageek-llc/inSSIDer-2/issues