Unstable WiFi?

Feb 7, 2019 - 4:20 PM

  • Has anyone else noticed their WiFi connection being sluggish/flaky?

    Joel

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  • I haven't noticed that, but haven't really stressed it that much either. I'll run some iperf throughput tests and see what I get. I will say that mine is only a few feet away from my WiFi router though. Without external antennas attached to the API the signal strength drops off very quickly as you move away from the router. If a wall or two comes between it and the router then I wouldn't be surprised if it started dropping some and performing poorly.

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  • A quick check using iperf at default settings shows that I get 25-30Mbps throughput on my LAN when connected via WiFi (same results for 2.4G and 5G) and looking at my router log I can see the RSSI for the connection is -73dBm (weakest link of any device I have, but not by a huge margin). This is with the API about 3 meters away from my router with a clear line-of-sight. The connection is very stable though. I'll have to test this against a Raspberry Pi 3B and other single board computers just to see how it stacks up. I'm sure adding antennas would improve things significantly though.

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  • My WiFi is stable but I am about six feet from the router in the same room. I just got external antennas and will try it from further away once I have it cased.

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  • I think you are also suppose to add an antennae. If you are running with no antennae, this might be what is causing issues. I could see my wifi, but it wouldn't connect, I imagine this weak signal would be the cause.

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  • I connected 2 of these antennas and Wifi has been working just fine with them.
    https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Inventek/W24-5P-U?qs=MLItCLRbWsyhL3gsE79YCA%3D%3D

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  • Thanks for the link Michael!

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  • Definitely noticed this issue. My APi is about 12 feet from my router but it would not stay connected. Haven't ever had that issue with my RPi's but had a very long Ethernet cable laying around so I just used that.

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  • I notice a significant drop in signal moving the atomic pi from my office(where router is) to my living room about 15 feet away but still have a stable enough connection for Kodi etc. I will be buying antennas for Wifi and Bluetooth eventually however. (Can't get a stable bluetooth audio connection with my headphones as is but I could just be an idiot)

    This post was edited Mar 1, 2019 09:46PM
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  • Bluetooth is also without an onboard antenna. I bought a Mouser part # 347-W24PU for Bluetooth, but have not attempted to use Bluetooth yet.

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  • As others have noted, an antenna is highly recommended for WiFi operation. Additionally, WiFi seems to perform slightly better with newer base systems (e.g. Ubuntu Cosmic 18.10).

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  • Thank you, Michael. Can that antenna be used for all 3 antenna ports, also bluetooth?

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  • You can use the first one that Michael posted the link to for both WiFi and Bluetooth as it covers the 2.4-5GHz range:

    https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Inventek/W24-5P-U?qs=MLItCLRbWsyhL3gsE79YCA%3D%3D

    The other one he posted (Mouser part # 347-W24PU) is only listed for 2.4GHz so it may perform poorly on the 5GHz band. If you only use 2.4GHz WiFi though then that one would be fine for both BT and WiFi.

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  • Might as well get the dual band then. Thanks, radu7

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  • We had the similar issue before. You can use WiTuners Mobile for a continuous site survey to check whether the performance varies with time. Here is a link to download WiTuners Mobile https://www.wituners.com/wifi-site-survey/

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