irf's profile

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4 Messages

Wednesday, August 19th, 2020 2:00 PM

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Wifi keeps dropping/reconnecting

I've had XFi service since about February, and more or less from the beginning my devices regularly lose the Wifi connection. This happens on all devices (phones, laptops, desktop, tablets), it is random but persistent. The devices will appear to still be on Wifi but no sites can be reached until they eventually drop and reconnects, or Wifi is manually turned off and back on. I have seen this happen repeatedly while sitting in the same room as the gateway so it is not a signal issue; I also have 3 XPods set up to improve coverage. Sometimes it'll only happen every 30-45 minutes or so, but other times it happens every few minutes. This makes it very hard to do online meetings/school etc. which has become a bigger problem. It also has the effect of our phones regularly switching to cellular data which absolutely killed my data plan.

 

My wired desktop doesn't have this problem, so it seems to be specific to the Wifi and not the actual internet connection. I've restarted the router several times but it has not resolved the problem. I've tried disabling either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands, it didn't help. Channel settings on the router admin are locked so I haven't been able to adjust those.

 

This has gone from being an annoyance to becoming a critical problem, especially with the upcoming school year having a large remote component. 

 

Please help me work this out and get reliable Wifi at home!

Accepted Solution

Regular Visitor

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4 Messages

4 years ago

Well, I found a practical solution, no thanks at all to Xfinity. I just went ahead and bought a decent SOHO-class wireless access point, turned off the Wifi on the Xfinity router, and presto, I now have rock-solid, reliable Wifi. It's been 4 days now and not a single dropped or stalled connection. Before when I ran a simple ping test on a Wifi-connected tablet, even when it stayed connected I'd see ping times vary wildly from 20-30ms up to 1500ms or more. This was in a room directly below the the gateway, and 3 feet away from an online XPod. If I do exactly the same thing now, I get consistent pings in the 12-30ms range, with no crazy outliers, even though the new access point is actually farther away now.

 

So for me at least it was definitely a problem with the XFinity wifi, the actual Internet connection behind it is reliable. It stinks to have to shell out for my own Wifi hardware, while still paying their monthly rental, but if you're having this problem this might be a good way to go. For me at least it's been night and day.

 

Expert

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106.2K Messages

4 years ago

Regular Visitor

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4 Messages

4 years ago

Thanks for the suggestions. But I don't think this is purely a signal quality/signal strength issue, because I've seen this happen repeatedly when I'm sitting 20 ft away from the gateway with clear line of sight. I also have 3 XFinity pods set up to help with coverage.  The devices don't initially appear to lose Wifi connection, they just lose the ability to reach any sites (at least internet sites; I haven't tested with hosts directly on the LAN, probably worth trying). Eventually the Windows devices at least will show "No internet", until they reconnect. Not sure what tools might help diagnose the root cause though--I'm pretty technical but I'm not a networking expert.

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1 Message

4 years ago

I sit less than 10 feet from my router, an Xfinity X-1, and it drops wifi multiple times a day. Very frustrating. Usually, on my laptop, I have to disconnect the wifi, then reconnect when the router shows up again in the list, and then I can move on with what I am doing. Thankfully, I am not still working from home, but this is still a huge inconvenience. Wish I could charge Comcast every time the router drops wifi and I lose service.

Expert

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106.2K Messages

4 years ago

@user_5a5eeb

Please create a new topic of your own here on this board detailing your issue. Thanks.  7 month old dead now being closed.

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