Networking Help needed! Wifi interference?

Hardware Hub Networking
1

So long story short, I really need help.
I have Verizon fios, and it works great, I only have to restart the (default)router about once a month, for the internet going out (not really disconnecting, just like 600ms ping to google)

I was using the default routers wifi for a while, but the range was bad, and I kept randomly getting disconnected,
and the range was not very good.

so I bought this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Y5RYNY/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1
it worked pretty well, but I kept having trouble with it, same as with the fios one, (but got better range and speeds)

Random  DNS errors(with and without opendns), giant lag spikes, times where until I restart the router pages became 'unavailable' or 'could not connect to server'

So I installed openwrt on it. and it worked great for about 2 months, then I noticed the old problem creeping back in,
it started with whenever my samsung smartphone was too close to my computer (and on wifi) I would randomly get high ping  in games, and it would last until I disabled wifi.

Then about a month later, I'd get daily lag spikes, and sometimes one device would stop sending/receiving data via wifi (while others works fine) and other times all devices would stop receiving/sending data.

at first I could fix it my disconnecting/reconnecting, but recently I have to restart the wifi(non-fios) router to get it to work.

I'm really not sure what to do at this point, I could buy a new router, and that may fix it,
I could also get a second router and put it in my room, and use it as a bridge...

I've tried the powerline (plug in to outlet adapters) but they randomly will just start flashing red (for low signal quality) for hours on end, and I'll have massive lag in game.
I contacted techsupport, and they said that 'some house wiring is not set up well, and will offer bad preformance' 


-The setup-
-I can't move the fios router, it's about 28' away from my room, and 6 feet down.
-Wireless router, 20' away from my room 6 feet down

-obstructions-
-Closet 3' wide  walls on both sides about 3" thick 
-staircase with garage behind it, about 16' from closet
-wall to my room 10" thick, above garage , at top of staircase

-Main devices-
-Desktop pc (mostly metal case) pciE tp-link wireless n card.
-Hp laptop intel wireless n card (built in)

 

I'm not sure if it's interference, as we have a DSL access point running in the same house.
I made sure to use a channel that was not in use, and that had the least overlap. 

I can't run a wire across my house, any suggestions?

2

Can you try moving the router to the center of the house?

3

No, I'm limited buy how much wiring I can put down.
It's my parents house, and they don't want wires going cross room. 

4

In your case, there are a few things you can do, for the router restarting issue (where you have to restart each month, you will have to bypass the actiontec crap, and set it to function as a coax to ethernet bridge (for the TV service)

 

The ONT should be set to ethernet instead of coax, if it is not, then you can run an ethernet cable to the ONT, then connect it to your non actiontec router, after that, you can then go into network settings, then make sure that ethernet and coax are both under the Network (Home/Office) bridge. After that, you can disable the DHCP server, then connect an ethernet cable from a LAN port of the actiontec, to a LAN port on your new router.

 

That should fix the issue with having to reboot. (worked for me) (the actiontec router was beyond horrible)

=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-For the wifi=-=--==-=-=-=-

At a distance, monitor the connect rate, and do something to saturate the connection (e.g., copy data across the LAN to a shared folder) If the connect rate drops by a significant amount, then there are stability issues with the connections. In which case you can try different channels.

If all of the channels are performing poorly, then I recommend benchmarking the upload and download performance separately, and monitor for issues such as gradually slowing speeds while the transfer is going. A good router is not enough, in many cases, if the client lacks the transmit power to reliably send data back to the router, will cause a significant amount of time to be spent testing progressively lower QAM modulation, while retransmitting data, thus you getting high pings)

 

Also disable the wifi on the actiontec router.

Also wifi devices to not like being too close together, it causes receiver overload, and ruins the noise floor..

 

If you run powerline adapters in the home, then you need to ensure that the circuit that they are on, is the same, and i not, then make sure that they are on the same side of the circuit breaker panel. It is also helpful for the outlets to be grounded, and for no surge protectors to be used (reason being, some surge protectors will have line filtering added)

Also, devices such as compact florescent lights, and especially many LED lamps, will dump a ton of noise onto the line. For pretty much all of the energy saving lights that I have seen, the companies that make them, cut a lot of corners on the switching regulators. On the cheapest end, they will use half wave bridge rectification, the smallest electrolytic capacitor they can get away with, and no additional input filtering, and thus when the switching regulator is running, it is dumping a ton of noise back into grid.

If you have an oscilloscope, and have some 100X probes, and an isolation transformer to power the scope, you can probe your electrical outlet directly to check for noise issues.

=-=--=

 

All in all, for now, benchmark your wifi locally, this works well if you use shared folders, so you can copy data directly from one system to another. Do this while monitoring the connection rate. (if possible, also ping a wired system, e.g., in a command window type in "ping 192.168.1.3 -t" where the IP is one of another computer on the network, then see if you get errors during the benchmarks, or high pings.