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Forum Discussion
How i fixed my Orbi Wifi woes
I turned off my Hue lights (and bridge). My frequent disconnects between router and and satellite have ceased and my wifi conections from iOS devices have become rock solid. All i need to do now is...
Just curious, when you observe the noise level on the network (from a computer, as I don't think iOS can show this), do you see any indication of this interference? I ask, because when I encountered drastic speed problems on the 5ghz band, which I eventually traced down to a Vizio soundbar transmitting to a wireless subwoofer, compared to the upper 5ghz channels (which were almost always -96) I saw higher interference on channel 36 (around -80 to -90). This has improved a bit since getting rid of the soundbar (now averages about -88), and speed is now perfect, but still I was surprised that something with such a debilitating effect on my network speed did not register more noise. I don't know if the still higher noise on channel 36 is an indication that there is something else in my home transmitting on 5ghz or if it's just "background noise", but regardless, shutting down the rogue soundbar yielded a huge improvement in throughput, yet only registered a couple of dB of noise (at best).
The dB scale is logarithmic, so even a small difference can be significant. A difference of 3 dB is equal to 200%. The difference between -80 dB and -96 dB (i.e. 16 dB) is almost 40000%.
TheEther wrote:The dB scale is logarithmic, so even a small difference can be significant. A difference of 3 dB is equal to 200%. The difference between -80 dB and -96 dB (i.e. 16 dB) is almost 40000%.
Thanks, very helpful! What's really odd to me is that I just hooked up the old soundbar again to see if I could observe any noticeable difference in noise level, and I could not. With the soundbar off, noise levels on channel 36 would stay at -89, sometimes fluctuating to -90 or -88, and on rare occasions would monentarily spike to -80 or so (even got as high as -72 once). But throughput was still fine. As soon as a turned the soundbar on, throughput tanked badly, but there was no discernable effect on the indication of noise... behaved pretty much exactly as it did with the soundbar off. Turn the soundbar off, proper throughput is restored.
That tells me 2 things...
1) The noise indication is not necessarily a totally reliable source for troubleshooting, and
2) Something really weird seems to be going on here with the lower 5ghz channels (even with the soundbar removed, noise on these channels is subtantially higher, though throughput does not appear to be substantially affected)
I agree that noise level, alone, is not necessarily a good indicator of performance. Signal to noise ratio, however, should have a stronger correlation.
Another thing to keep in mind is that channel 36 is part of what is known as the U-NII-1 band (channels 36-48). If I am not mistaken, the maximum power allowed in this band is 50 mW. Contrast this with the U-NII-3 band (channels 149-165) where the maximum power allowed is 1 W or 20x greater. That's roughly the difference between a human speaking normally and very loudly.
Had exactly the same problem so your post made me move my Orbi satellite away from my wireless soundbar and now everything is rock solid! Thanks for the post that tweaked me on a possible solution. Bottom line, satellite placement is critical.
Glad you found the problem. Like any other RF issue, antenna (satellite) placement is critical to get proper performance!
