Forum Discussion

philnumbers's avatar
philnumbers
Tuning in
6 months ago
Solved

2.4GHz WiFi grinds to a halt / unusable

Hello

I have an issue where my 2.4GHz WiFi connections grind to a halt and become unusable.

Ethernet and 5GHz are fine, speedy in fact and have no issues.

As far as I can tell the issue arises when our phones (iPhone 13 and 13 Pro) switch over to a 2.4 connection. Doesn't seem to happen to my Mac Book but maybe that is better at keeping the 5GHz connection?

I have a Hub 3 and have 2.4 & 5 both switched on with everything set to Auto / Enable Channel Optimization - I believe it has to be set like this for my plug in Virgin issued WiFi booster to work properly.

The greyed out channel on 2.4 shows Channel 6, I assume this is the channel it's using even though I can't manually change it. I have a Sonos system with various speakers, that is set to Channel 1.

Is poor 2.4 speed a known issue with Hub 3 and anything I can do to help fix it? I'm trying to get VM on the case but need to try again tomorrow on their chat so thought I'd ask here in the meantime. And I'm talking very slow, like a single simple page will take minutes to load, videos in YT / FB etc won't load.

 

Cheers

  • Steven_L's avatar
    Steven_L
    6 months ago

    Thanks for coming back to us philnumbers, have you been able to check for issues with the WiFi pod turned off as you mentioned earlier in the thread? We can then determine if the pod is causing the issues that you're experiencing.

    Kind Regards,

    Steven_L

    • Ashleigh_C's avatar
      Ashleigh_C
      Forum Team

      Hi there philnumbers 

      Thank you for updating for us, I have checked and can see the BQM looks to be healthy, how have things been with your connection since this post? 

      As Sephiroth has mentioned we do advise switching to router mode so we can run full checks on the Hub on our side?

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta

    Modem mode won’t let you down (the Hub 3 might!).  A decent mesh system, with the right topology is always the best solution versus the stupid tied Pods that VM peddle and which totally destroy your ability to configure the separate wireless bands.  

    The BQM displayed OK; however the underlying latency (the green bit) is rather high.  It might be explained by the Hub 3 and its crappy CPU (your network logs may show panic/Atom messages).  The Forum Team did ask for the BQM so I heartily recommend that you ask them about the latency.

    Of course, they’ll tell you to put the Hub into router mode so that the BQM talks to the Hub not the TP-Link router.  You could pre-empt this by running the system for a day in router mode with the TP-Link router attached and set to Bridge Mode (or equivalent).  Then the Hub is doing all the work and the BQM (different IP address) would tell us if the high latency is down to your TP-Link router (as in if latency is lower, the router settings need examining).

    Keep us posted.

  • Hi Ashleigh_C

    Thanks for the reply, the connection has been great since I have stopped relying on the Hub wifi & using the mesh system.

    I'm not sure how switching back to router mode would help tbh, as far as I understand it the BQM only tests as far as my router and doesn't monitor the connection between my router and any devices connected to it - please correct me if I'm wrong though? As noted my ping delay might be a bit on the high side.

    It's disappointing that your Hub 3 (or at least my Hub 3!) isn't up to the task of the promised "WiFi Guarantee with WiFi Max" even with your plug in extenders. Can I request that you credit the £100 to my next bill please, as detailed here https://www.virginmedia.com/virgin-tv-edit/tips-and-tricks/boost-your-wifi-with-virgin-media-intelligent-wifi-pods

    Here's a typical speed test that I've been experiencing recently, before switching to modem mode and installing the mesh system. Many times though the speed has been down into single figures and sometimes losing internet connection entirely despite still being connected to the WiFi with a strong signal.

  • And for completeness here is another speed test from the same phone, later in the day using the Tp-Link mesh.

    This is NOT using the Hub WiFi.

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta

    Just to say, in the earlier BQM, it was the high base latency that concerned me.  If you're not bothered by it, then you can forget my recommended action.  You've alighted on a good solution.  I've always been in modem mode (since the Superhub 2) apart from the odd router mode testing that I do.   

    • philnumbers's avatar
      philnumbers
      Tuning in

      Sephiroth wrote:

      Just to say, in the earlier BQM, it was the high base latency that concerned me.  If you're not bothered by it, 


      Well I wasn't bothered by it but something happened over night last night and it's taken a bit of a jump up according to the BQM graph.

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta

    Take a look at your Network Log and look for ATOM events.  If they are there, then it's hopeless and the Hub3 needs to be replaced by a different model.