Smart Hub 3 drops wifi every day on all devices

[jj0306]

Hi for several months the wifi drops suddenly about once a day. I had an engineer round it was working perfect then so he wasn't much help. He said my "levels" were fine.

I have split channels and it works fine but then the drop comes for a few minutes.

its doing my head in it used to be fine. both my 360 tv boxes drop out when watching on demand then takes me 10 mins to get it working again.

I waste hours on the phone and currently i am on my 4th hub 3 in 3 months. So its not the Hub.

I note that a few other people on here suggested its a know problem. If it is then perhaps someone should admit this and tell the people on the phones.

Can anyone help.

[jbrennand]

Is it a wifi only issue - or perhaps you are losing full network connection?

To diagnose which.... are the issues only evident on wifi connections or do you see them at the same times on devices connected on ethernet cables? If you don't know, can you check to help diagnose whether it is just a wifi issue or it could be network connection related?

What Hub model is it and what are the various Hub lights showing/doing when this happens?

[jj0306]

i only happens on wifi as far as i am aware. i have one device on ethernet and most of the time its turned off. When the wifi drops about once a day its back on again in 2 mins so no chance to test. the fact is that the wifi drops for only 2 mins but works fine rest of the time and about once a day. times vary and obviously it could be happening more but i haven't noticed.

I thought about buying a router but its down to virgin to provide the service. I know all this jaz about we dont guarantee wifi but as this is intermittent its clearly a fault. Its not the hub i am on my 4th hub 3

[jbrennand]

As its a wifi only issue, then on a Hub3/4, you can try separating the SSID's of the 2.4 and 5 GHz wifi bands by renaming them in the settings and at the same time switch off "channel optimisation" apply and save the settings. All wifi devices will need reconnecting to the best SSID at each location.

Also use a wifi scanning App to find the best wifi channels to use (just select and use channels 1,6,11 on 2.4GHz) - this often helps Hub3 users get better wifi performance - but its still no substitute for getting better kit 🙂

To address the wifi, VM now supply “wifi Pods” (no longer doing “boosters”). Pods are only free to customers on 1GB, Ultimate Oomph or Volt packages - is that you?

If not… you will be charged £5/month (note that BT charge £10/month for their whole-home wifi package). Its a simple solution and should work for you. However, you would soon pay off that cost by buying a "better" wireless solution that will be yours to own and use forever but it isn’t the simple plug and play option of the Pod(s).

[legacy1]

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@jj0306 wrote:

I thought about buying a router but its down to virgin to provide the service. 

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Their service does not mean wifi or NAT the only service VM need to do is change Docsis to Ethernet and back again which is modem mode.  

[jj0306]

erm tried pods everything was far worse. I have split channels already as you said above this improved my connections but i still get the drop. Its exceptionally aboying when watching virgin on demand tv as takes 10 mins to get it working again. I think i will try my own router. I do feel virgin need to address this as the issue happens on all 4 router i have tried and i reckon it will happen on any i buy as this is down to virgin i think. Apparently they were working in my area yesterday improving our services. Im proving them in what way i ask?

[jj0306]

what are you talking about, virgin advertise intelligent wifi. When that started my issue started. There is nothing intelligent about virgin.

[jbrennand]

Can we clarify summat... did you actually do as I asked in message 2?

If so what was the Hub light showing when wifi dropped and did the ethernet connected device maintain network connection?

Until we know this.... its possible that the issue is not just wifi related but its a total network disconnection - possibly related to some ongoing work. You can see that if yoiu set up a BQM at...

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

And...If by you saying its happening on "4 routers" - do you mean 4 VM Hubs - or with your own router(s)? If they are all VM Hubs, then as they are all have the same Poundshop wireless capabilities - it would hardly be surprising if they all had the same wifi limitations in your location. Any decent wifi router of your own should sort that out.

[jj0306]

Thanks for the replies. Yes i Have had my sh 3 changed 4 times. 

I have just got a AX1800 router from TP Link and set it up. Its been working for about 3 hours so looking good.

I am interested in playing around with a wifi app like you mentioned but can find on on the  iphone which provides anything useful. Let me know your recomendations.

Thanks for the help.

Oh i still did answer the question. As far as i know it was wifi only and ethernet was fine and lights didnt change on the hub. Now i have turned of wifi and using modem mode i have a red light but i guess thats ok as it works.

Dunno if i chose right setting on the TP Link but again it works. Lol

[jbrennand]

Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment over and over and expecting a different result. So having the same issue on 4 Hubs tells you that it's not the Hub itself that is the root cause of the issue 🙂

Only way to scan on an iPhone (I do it) is to get "Airport Utility" from the App store and install it. Then in the phone settings, click it and turn on the WiFi Scanning function (toggle the button to green). Then fire up the App and wifi scan will appear in blue at the top right of the screen - click it and select to scan