why does my wifi connection keep on dropping??

**pbfan** · 06-23-2011, 05:56 AM

RIM probably does not know the problem.

**mikeygberry** · 06-23-2011, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by pbfan

RIM probably does not know the problem.

I'd agree with you on that

**evolutionPlaybook** · 06-23-2011, 01:06 PM

Stop blaming your routers, well some of you may need to update them. As far as me goes there is no doubt in my mind that most of PB's including mine have extremely weak antennas. I have the latest and the greatest wireless configuration at home, running T3 speeds also and my PB can't keep and doesn't show a full connection. Every other device that I own including my 1.5 year old HTC incredible have full bars 24/7 even outside my yard. With my PB I have never seen it go more than half.

**PatrickMJS** · 06-23-2011, 01:23 PM

My first comment is that my PB has had excellent, even rock-solid wifi performance. It always connects and pretty much stays connected.

Regarding the recommendations to drop to "g" from "n", I cannot see how that could be the problem since my use of "n" has been completely stable.

I don't have a problem using WPA not WPA2, but I agree with the posters who wrote that RIM should update the PB to accept WPA2. But the fact that it doesn't seem to support WPA2 now isn't a real security issue IMHO, and I take security very seriously.

Regarding the hand covering the upper left corner, I tested here and regardless which part of the house I'm in, there is no impact on the # of wifi bars when I hold my hand there, and I even tried it with both hands covering the upper left corner.

**adrenaline_x** · 06-23-2011, 01:32 PM

I had the same issues before .5 update.. It made me so angry.. had to turn off wifi and re-enable it.

What i did to fix it was backup my playboook (videos and pictures) and connected it to desktop manager. Rebooted the device and while it was shutting down i hit update in desktop manager.. it said there was a problem and asked if i wanted to update the software... I said yes..

Effectively i wiped my playbook and started from scratched.. Worked flawlessly until i updated to the latest update.. Now it was off and on at home (di-615)... Rebooting didn't work... Finally unplugged the power from my router for 5 minutes and plugged it back it. All is working again for the last few days.

It works perfectly at work..

**samab** · 06-23-2011, 01:34 PM

Bluetooth and wifi are in the same 2.4 GHz space --- so they interfere with each other --- technical term is coexistence.

(1) Update your router firmware --- draft 2.0 routers lacked technologies that help bluetooth coexistence (which is in the FINAL 802.11n spec). Draft 2.0 Linksys routers also incorrectly default to wide channels --- which was incorrect according to the spec.

(2) Update your laptop's wifi and bluetooth drivers --- new drivers will help coexistence. Just because your laptop or your 2 year old smartphone is having solid wifi reception --- doesn't mean that they are not causing interference problems.

page special drivers

(3) Unless you have like a PSP or a Gameboy that doesn't do WPA2 with AES --- use WPA2 with AES on your router. Not only is it more secure --- ALL wifi and Cortex A9 chipsets have AES hardware acceleration which improves battery life and higher throughput.

This is a website that tested wifi router throughput speed --- using WEP or WPA/TKIP instead of WPA2, you are losing something like 50-90% throughput.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/conte.../30208/96/1/6/

(4) Don't use wide channels unless you know what you are doing.

(5) Both 802.11g and 802.11n operate in the same space as bluetooth --- but only the newer 802.11n has the newer and better bluetooth coexistence technology. If you don't have legacy devices, then set your router to N-only.

(6) If you have an old unused 802.11g router hanging around in the basement somewhere, then use it. Link the old G router to the new N router by an ethernet cable (and set them as far away to each other as possible) --- then set the old G router to G only and the new N router to N only.

**kirson** · 06-23-2011, 01:40 PM

I couldn't connect at work until the last OS upgrade (1.0.6) - before that it would find the signal, connect, then drop within 5 second, then connect, 5 seconds, then drop. All day - and it would KILL the battery. Since 1.0.6, holds the signal at the office like a champ. Never had an issue at home, until around a week or two ago when everything at home slowed down to a crawl. The upgrade to 1.0.5 took like 4 hours. A few days ago, I unplugged the cable modem at home (Comcast), and then after restarting the cable modem, everything was back to normal. Upgraded to 1.0.6 in under 10 minutes. Not sure I can draw any conclusions from any of this...

**togardergrosse** · 06-23-2011, 01:41 PM

Originally Posted by samab

Bluetooth and wifi are in the same 2.4 GHz space --- so they interfere with each other --- technical term is coexistence.

(1) Update your router firmware --- draft 2.0 routers lacked technologies that help bluetooth coexistence (which is in the FINAL 802.11n spec). Draft 2.0 Linksys routers also incorrectly default to wide channels --- which was incorrect according to the spec.

(2) Update your laptop's wifi and bluetooth drivers --- new drivers will help coexistence. Just because your laptop or your 2 year old smartphone is having solid wifi reception --- doesn't mean that they are not causing interference problems.

page special drivers

(3) Unless you have like a PSP or a Gameboy that doesn't do WPA2 with AES --- use WPA2 with AES on your router. Not only is it more secure --- ALL wifi and Cortex A9 chipsets have AES hardware acceleration which improves battery life and higher throughput.

This is a website that tested wifi router throughput speed --- using WEP or WPA/TKIP instead of WPA2, you are losing something like 50-90% throughput.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/conte.../30208/96/1/6/

(4) Don't use wide channels unless you know what you are doing.

(5) Both 802.11g and 802.11n operate in the same space as bluetooth --- but only the newer 802.11n has the newer and better bluetooth coexistence technology. If you don't have legacy devices, then set your router to N-only.

(6) If you have an old unused 802.11g router hanging around in the basement somewhere, then use it. Link the old G router to the new N router by an ethernet cable (and set them as far away to each other as possible) --- then set the old G router to G only and the new N router to N only.

My eyes turn and my head feels like going to explode!

Nice info mate! Will try to understand and try it out myself..

**samab** · 06-23-2011, 01:48 PM

Originally Posted by kirson

A few days ago, I unplugged the cable modem at home (Comcast), and then after restarting the cable modem, everything was back to normal. Upgraded to 1.0.6 in under 10 minutes. Not sure I can draw any conclusions from any of this...

If you unplug your cable modem and router --- and that solves the problem --- it generally means that your wifi router was in a very congested channel that had a lot of interference. Unplugging the router means that when it reboots, it searches for a new channel space and found one that is not congested.

**kirson** · 06-23-2011, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by samab

If you unplug your cable modem and router --- and that solves the problem --- it generally means that your wifi router was in a very congested channel that had a lot of interference. Unplugging the router means that when it reboots, it searches for a new channel space and found one that is not congested.

Cool. Good to know. There are a lot of wireless "things" going on in our house. Perhaps I just need to turn everything off and on again every now and then to make sure it's optimized. Thanks!

**kbz1960** · 06-23-2011, 02:39 PM

Originally Posted by RiSq

as long as your internet isnt over 54mb it wont. but if youre like me and have a 100mb connection, its a 50% performance drop going from N to B/G but its all i can do right now....

Wow what do you pay for a 100mb connection?

**bombstylz** · 06-23-2011, 06:47 PM

I have a Dlink Dir-615, and have the same issues with the wifi cutting out. No issues with other devices. I updated the Firmware to the latest (3.12 i think) and it didn't seem to make a difference. Today I changed it to WPA and G only, and will now have to test out if that helps. So far I haven't seen a drop, but some pages still take a while to load, or just hang there while loading. I have already clear cache and all that, but still have issues, especially with CB.com

In regards to people saying that the wifi drops when you hold the upper left corner (in landscape), i noticed this from day 1 of owning the playbook (had it for about a month). This is pretty much the issue the Iphone has.

**r6punk** · 06-23-2011, 09:16 PM

ok, i converted my router to wpa only.
lets see if it will work better.
it was on wpa/wpa2.

thanks for all the suggestions, fingers crossed.

and yes, similar to bombstylz, its a lot slower, esp cb.com.

**samab** · 06-23-2011, 11:43 PM

As I stated earlier (read the link I cited), if you put your wifi router to WPA --- you lose half your speed (throughput). Your wifi router will have to use the CPU to encrypt/decrypt WPA's TKIP encryption algorithm --- without hardware accelaration.

Even though WPA2's AES encryption algorithm is more complex than WPA's TKIP encryption algorithm --- your wifi router has AES hardware acceleration built-in. So you are going to have faster wifi with WPA2 with AES.

**trevlan006** · 06-24-2011, 08:45 PM

I Have tried everything except replace the modem.
starbucks my service drops, and other hotspots. so its not my home modem, clearly.

**r6punk** · 06-25-2011, 10:44 PM

ok,by changing to wpa, my internet connection drops have decreased significantly. now its only once or twice a day instead of every few minutes.

however it is slower.
especially on cb.com

**mikeygberry** · 06-27-2011, 05:10 PM

well i've been getting really annoyed with this dropping of wifi, so have been doing a bit of playing. so far it seems to drop on sites which have flash video, tvcatchup seems to lag a lot and then wifi drops then reconnects also it does it on the bbc iplayer, any ideas, is it something related to flash? general browsing seems to be fine

**jonty12** · 06-27-2011, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by mikeygberry

well i've been getting really annoyed with this dropping of wifi, so have been doing a bit of playing. so far it seems to drop on sites which have flash video, tvcatchup seems to lag a lot and then wifi drops then reconnects also it does it on the bbc iplayer, any ideas, is it something related to flash? general browsing seems to be fine

Just got back from my first business trip since the 1.0.6 update (including the Flash upgrade to 10.3). WiFi was horrible. Dropped every 5 minutes when connected to hotel hotspots. This didn't happen with earlier OSes. Very, very, let me add, very frustrating.

It's all fine and good to suggest to people to switch from WEP to WPA2, etc or to update firmware on the router, but if you travel with your PB, this isn't an option. Starbucks, Sheraton, Hilton, etc, aren't going to be doing any firmware upgrades or security switches for you.

The hotspots work perfectly on my laptop and on my phone, they should on the PB as well. Period.

**mikeygberry** · 06-29-2011, 01:35 AM

right problem i think is resolved, and it's not the security issues of the wireless. As you can imagine i was getting really annoyed with this so started different tests. bluetooth off etc. even as to so far as blaming iphone on the wireless as they seem to hog dhcp leases.

On the router i changed the length of time the dhcp lease is for and so far it's not dropped in the last couple of days. OK this seems to have resolved it at home and still using wpa2 but i've not really used my PB on hotspots so can't really comment on the wifi drops out for that. even my problems with steaming tvcatchup has gone.

**mmcpher** · 06-29-2011, 01:45 PM

We nned a wifi/bluetooth tutorial! For wireless idiots like me! There seems to be a lot of conficting info in this thread -- use WPA - use WPA2, no, the Playbook won't connect to WPA2, only WPA2 has the latest bluetooth compatability software. . . . . . tough to follow and assess.

I do know that the Playbook works with WPA2 because that's what I'm running at home. I also notice the persistent bluetooth headset interference is worse at work, where our router is running WPA, than at home where I have the router set to WPA2.

I have a Lynksys Cisco e4200 at home, which is an N-class router. I think I have it set to auto. How do you know what channel the BT is running on?

And what is "Connection Data Rate" indicitive of? It mostly seems stuck on 11 Mbps, although it ocassionally hits 24 Mbps. I have this vague feeling that I could help things along, wifi wise, if only I had a clue.

**mmcpher** · 06-29-2011, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by samab

Bluetooth and wifi are in the same 2.4 GHz space --- so they interfere with each other --- technical term is coexistence.

(1) Update your router firmware --- draft 2.0 routers lacked technologies that help bluetooth coexistence (which is in the FINAL 802.11n spec). Draft 2.0 Linksys routers also incorrectly default to wide channels --- which was incorrect according to the spec.

(2) Update your laptop's wifi and bluetooth drivers --- new drivers will help coexistence. Just because your laptop or your 2 year old smartphone is having solid wifi reception --- doesn't mean that they are not causing interference problems.

page special drivers

(3) Unless you have like a PSP or a Gameboy that doesn't do WPA2 with AES --- use WPA2 with AES on your router. Not only is it more secure --- ALL wifi and Cortex A9 chipsets have AES hardware acceleration which improves battery life and higher throughput.

This is a website that tested wifi router throughput speed --- using WEP or WPA/TKIP instead of WPA2, you are losing something like 50-90% throughput.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/conte.../30208/96/1/6/

(4) Don't use wide channels unless you know what you are doing.

(5) Both 802.11g and 802.11n operate in the same space as bluetooth --- but only the newer 802.11n has the newer and better bluetooth coexistence technology. If you don't have legacy devices, then set your router to N-only.

(6) If you have an old unused 802.11g router hanging around in the basement somewhere, then use it. Link the old G router to the new N router by an ethernet cable (and set them as far away to each other as possible) --- then set the old G router to G only and the new N router to N only.

I've heard that when you have an N-speed router, but with n speed and b/g legacy devices attached to it, the N router has to slow to the legacy device speeds and its worse than that and everything bottlenecks and runs even slower than the prior to N-speed router. I think most of my stuff at home is capable of using 802.11n. . . . with the exception of my Blackberry devices? I know the Torch and the Playbook will "work" with the 802.11n, but at a heavy speed price?