odd network slowness on home wireless, speedy on hotel network

[grins]

2012 Nexus 7, android 4.4.2, and recently changed home wireless router from the $7/mo comcast gateway to a motorola surfboard/linksys EA6200 combo, 25Mb down, 5Mb up.

nexus 7 used to work as expected--touch and hold on video in chrome, select "Save link", and a <filename>.crdownload file appears in the download folder, and eventually it downloads completely. Recently, though, the .crdownload files appear, grow in size, and at some point disappear. Note: Other wireless devices in the home show normal performance and behavior.

However, was in a hotel last week and using their wireless network, the old, normal, expected behavior was back. press and hold, save as, .crdownload, downloads complete.

nexus 7 shows a 4-bar connection to my home wireless network. Speedtest app on the nexus 7 tells me I'm getting 0.11Mb down, 1.1Mb up--another wireless device on same network shows 29.8Mb down 5.61Mb up just seconds later

Ideas?

Could it be getting confused by the 5GHz network on the new router? I have SPI firewall protection enabled for IPv4 and 6, and I filter anonymous internet requests, other than that the only protection on the wireless network is the password.

thanks, y'all

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! You already seem pretty knowledgeable about routers, so I assume you've already tried rebooting the router, as well as checking to make sure it's not using a crowded wi-fi channel?

 

[grins]

Hey B. Diddy!

Thanks for checking in. I try to give enough information that the actual smart folk might be able to answer quickly ;-)

I'll reboot the router. How would I check for a crowded channel? Or do I just switch to a different channel and hope for better? It'd make more sense if every client were having trouble instead of _just_ the tablet...anyway, thanks for trying

t

 

[B. Diddy]

A couple of things:

1. I saw that you mentioned you have a "combo" Surfboard. Do you mean it's a combination modem/router? If that's the case, then simply unplugging the power and then plugging back in might not reboot it, since it may have a built-in battery backup. You might have to do the reboot from the device's settings screen, accessible from your computer's browser. Check the router manual to find out how to log into it.

2. You can analyze the wi-fi channels around you by using InSSIDer for Windows, or Wifi Analyzer for Android. If you see that there are a lot of neighboring wifi networks that use the same channel as yours, you can log into your router settings and change the wifi channel there.

Since only your tablet seems to be having problems, #2 is less likely to be the issue, but still worth checking. Rebooting the router is stll the first thing I'd try.

 

[grins]

FIXED!

sorry, poor phrasing on my part. the original gateway was, as you said, combined modem and router. the new parts are a separate modem, and a separate Linksys EA6200 wireless router.

I changed the channel on the wireless router, I was on channel 2 and the second strongest signal was on channel 1. However, I think the thing that confused the Nexus 7 was that the linksys access point had a "guest network" enabled on the same channel, same ssid but with "-guest" appended. Disabling the guest network made speedtest give good numbers, downloads work, etc.

I raise my glass, giving praise and honor to B. Diddy :-D

 

[B. Diddy]

Aw shucks, I didn't end up doing anything--you figured it out on your own!