cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?

FIXED
MKSlinky
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 866
Thanks: 239
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎26-01-2016

Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?

I've been experiencing signal dropouts at random intervals for almost 2 years now whenever I stream music from my laptop via 'Air-Play' to my Sony Home Cinema system. Although very annoying usually it's either a case of resetting my router or assigning Googles DNS settings which cures this problem.

HOWEVER, yesterday I spent almost 2 hours trying to troubleshoot this issue and nothing would prevent my audio from dropping out. Having exhausted every conceivable solution I decided to log into my Hub One router and experiment with the Channel numbers and changed it from 'Smart Wireless' to channel 7, instantly this solved the problem!

Of course having now read one of the help files it mentions using either channels 1, 6 or 11 so I have now set it at the latter (11).

My question is this, why are we told to use those channels when '7' worked just fine, moreover why is my wireless signal so bad when my receiver and laptop are just 5 feet away in the same room with a clear line of sight?

I have no other devices in the house which could be causing the interference and on previous occasions I've ruled this out by turning off everything so I can only assume the interference is external, a neighbour perhaps. 

Anyone else ever had these issues?

7 REPLIES 7
Gel
Aspiring Champion
Posts: 2,332
Thanks: 299
Fixes: 29
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?

Fix
Have you checked frequencies in use, in your locale with an app such as "inSSIDer"?
Are you using both frequencies on your Hub-One- perhaps turn one off.
jafreer
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 858
Thanks: 41
Registered: ‎13-10-2012

Re: Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?

The Smart WIreless function seems to cause lots of problems and it is strongly advised to turn it off. When I first got my router and had it switched on, I had similar issues to you. You should also give the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz networks different names. As for wifi channels, just pick a quiet one. I don't think it is too critical what the channel number is, just as long as it is quiet.

As the previous poster mentioned, inSSIDer is a great piece of software that will scan and let you know what channels are being used.

SpendLessTime
Hero
Posts: 3,000
Thanks: 928
Fixes: 86
Registered: ‎21-09-2009

Re: Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?


@MKSlinky wrote:

 

My question is this, why are we told to use those channels when '7' worked just fine, 

 


http://www.metageek.com/training/resources/why-channels-1-6-11.html

Ex - Plusnet Customer (2009 - 2023) now with BT
jafreer
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 858
Thanks: 41
Registered: ‎13-10-2012

Re: Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?

Non overlapping channels but if everyone uses them, then there would be more users on these channels than any others, making wi-fi speeds even worse. I think the best thing is to look at what other networks exist (use inSSIDer) and then based on the channels they are on and their signal strength, pick the best channel based on that.

MKSlinky
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 866
Thanks: 239
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎26-01-2016

Re: Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?

@Gel

Thanks for the advice, I consider myself quite tech savvy but your reply is a bit geek speak for me, sorry! Undecided

I Googles inSSIDer to find out what it does exactly and although I can see it can be run from my laptop it's unclear which version to download, the latest one which is shareware or the free version which hasn't been updated for a while?

I say I'm tech savvy but actually I find these kind of issue quite perplexing so any help is useful.

 

Are you using both frequencies on your Hub-One- perhaps turn one off.

Can you elaborate?

MKSlinky
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 866
Thanks: 239
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎26-01-2016

Re: Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?


@jafreer wrote:

The Smart WIreless function seems to cause lots of problems and it is strongly advised to turn it off. When I first got my router and had it switched on, I had similar issues to you. You should also give the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz networks different names.

What would be the purpose of giving them different names? 

EDIT:

Just logged into my Hub One router again and now looking at the 2.4 GHz & 5 GHz Wireless settings and I can perhaps understand your comment now, presumably having different names helps differentiate between the two?

I notice that the 2.4 GHz is on channel 11 which is what I assigned on Saturday but now I'm wondering if I should also change the 5 GHz from 'Smart Wireless' to something different? Currently it's on channel 48.

I have an Amazon FireTV Stick on the 5 GHz, strangely this is identified as an 'Amazon Kindle' but no devices are showing on the 2.4 GHz. I think my laptop appears on that one once it's turned on.

Whilst writing this reply I've now also renamed both SSID's to differentiate between the two. Smiley

Thanks again for your help guys, looking forward to finally putting this to bed. Thumbs_Up

MKSlinky
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 866
Thanks: 239
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎26-01-2016

Re: Frequent Audio dropouts when streaming - Neighbouring Interference?

@Gel

Thanks again for mentioning 'inSSIDer', admittedly I was a little confused by your post at first as network issues have always been a grey area for me. That said however after downloading the aforementioned software I soon grasped the hang of it. Thumbs_Up

So basically after launching the software for the first time and clicking the 'Network' tab I could quickly see my network connection plus neighbouring devices. inSSIDer prompted me that I should change channels from 11 to channel 1 instead. This seemed to improve the speed of my connection and what's more I've noticed I can stream audio over 'AirPlay' without dropouts. Furthermore I even watched almost 3 hours of streamed content (best quality) over my Amazon FireTV stick without a single buffering issue, something that has plagued me quite a lot lately.

I'm posting the below screenshot in the hope that one of you guys might help me understand what I am seeing, for instance the yellow 'TalkTalk' network which might be my next-door neighbour still seems to be overlapping my own channel and yet all other channels appear to be occupied. I checked this regularly for several hours and all the other networks seemed static. Some connections appeared momentarily and then disappeared like one called 'mouse' and a couple of HP printers but other than that nothing much changed . Presumably as all other channels appear to be permanently occupied am I stuck with Channel 1? 

 

2017-04-03 (1).png