jsnydcsa

OK. This is a tough one.

Right now, I have about 12 devices hooked up to a Verizon MI424WR rev. I FIOS Router. I'm not in the sticks and generally get very good up/down. Just now on Ookla I got ping of 12ms, download of 64.38 mb and upload of 53.63. And generally see numbers like that all the time. The devices range from a couple of older dell laptops, an apple tv, 4-6 iphones (depending on the day), 2-4 ipads (depending on the day) and one MS surface laptop running mostly multiuser video chats and some pretty serious graphic rendering programs. So, router is certainly well used.

Today, I attempted to connect to new Dell laptops (actually two duplicate refurbed Insprion 3593s running Windows 10). They get NO access via the router. Barely anything up down on Ookla and other test sites and often the test sites will not even load (much less even the Google home page). Cannot download drivers to update the Insprion 3593s via the FIOS router.

When I connect them to the Verizon MI424WR via ethernet, they get blazing speeds. Same when connecting via a colleagues AT&T mifi and another colleague's iphone using the hotspot. Indeed, I could use the colleague's iphone to download a few driver updates.

Why on earth would the laptops get such poor speeds from the FIOS MI424WR and get great speeds on "other" access points? Any help and tips appreciated! Could it be as simple as the FIOS MI424WR limits the number of devices? I'll point out that the FIOS MI424WR delivered GREAT speed to all of the devices above WHILE the two Dell Insprion 3593s were trying to connect.

Any tips appreciated!

Thanks!

TGarza

Possibly, the laptops are grabbing an IP address in use by another device. I had to release and renew a Windows machine which was attempting to use the same IP address as a TV streaming device. The connection speeds increased after the release and renew commands.

jsnydcsa

Ok. Great. I’d be happy to try and ‘fix’ this. How to, though? Is this on the Dell Laptops? On the router (some sort of internal settings)? I’d be happy to try. But need a little more wisdom on how to do so.

Thanks.

paperwastage

if it's indeed an IP issue, do the release/renew/flushdns on the machine
https://support.nexon.net/hc/en-us/a...-and-Flush-DNS


after that, try ping 8.8.8.8 (verify it's not a DNS issue)

jsnydcsa

So. I gave this a try.

"Working Device" e.g. the non-Dell laptop that has been accessing this FIOS network for months without issue
Verizon's own speed test 11Down/34 Up, Latency: 22 ms
Ookla Speed Test Ping 18ms, 18-20down/23.4 up
Not Bad

Dell Laptop One
Post release/renew/flushdns
Verizon 2.1 Down 15 Up, Latency 12 ms
Ookla ping is 11 ms, 2.75 to 3.11 down, 33-45 to 40.69 up (what's up with that UP speed?!?!)
Ping of 8.8.8.8 said round trip of 4 packets sent/received is avg 16ms
I don't think that's so good for this machine. Its an improvement from sh!t and nothing. But, still...

Working on second Dell Laptop now. More to follow. Though I'm predicting not so good.

Dell Laptop Two
Phenom speeds up and down using buddy's hotspot. Now on to instructions and further tests.
Connected back to FIOS.

Ran ipconfig as above
Ping 8.8.8.8
4 packets sent received 0% loss min 9ms Max 37 ms, acg 18 ms
Verizon speed test site
5 down / 41 up latency 15 ms
That sucks

Ookla on second machine
Ping 13 ms, download = 1.19-1.31, upload = 42.2. Again, ... is up with that up speed but sh!t down speed.

Argh!

gfunkdave

Doesn't seem to have anything to do with IP conflicts (and if it did the two machines involved would tell you they had detected a duplicate IP address on the network).

It sounds like the wifi cards in your refurb Dell laptops are bad. Or they have old drivers that are causing issues. Be sure to install the most up-to-date drivers from support.dell.com.

DYKWIA

Now you mention it... About 18 months ago, I had a Dell laptop provided by a client I was working for. It all worked fine initially.

After a Windows 10 update, the Wifi starting give a very similar (if not identical) issues to that which the OP is facing.

After a lot of trial and error, I noticed that the Wifi driver had updated as part of the Windows update. I rolled it back to the previous version, and all was well! So, the newest driver was actually causing the issue.

So, it's worth trying newer and older drivers.

jsnydcsa

I did update the drivers (by getting on another WiFi network - which gave me great speed). Once drivers updated, problem still persisted on my network. So, I don't think its the Wifi in the laptops as they worked fine on another network.

Verizon is sending me a new router I assume its another Verizon MI424WR Wonder if that'll help?

jsnydcsa

Update
Verizon sent me another Verizon MI424WR router.
Out of the box. Connected. Only TWO devices connected (this device - an Apple laptop that I'm typing this message on) and one of the two Dell laptops in question. No more wifi-palooza on my old network of multiple devices.
Actually WORSE wifi connection speed on this device (the Apple laptop), via Ookla and other speed test sites than with the previous Verizon FIOS router.
And, SAME persistent issue on the both Dell laptops.
My only other idea is to connect some sort of WiFi access device (such as an Apple Airport, Google/Amazon "mesh" WiFi device) to either the old or new FIOS router to give these Dells a non-FIOS wifi access point. As discussed above, these Dells did fine wifi connection speed-wise when connected to an iPhone hotspot running on TMo's network, an iPhone hotspot running on Verizon Mobile's network and a Mifi device running on AT&T's network. Perhaps using some sort of WiFi access device (such as an Apple Airport, Google/Amazon "mesh" WiFi device) to either the old or new FIOS router might "avoid" the problem. In substance I'll be "away" from FIOS's WIFI and connected via another's WiFi (albeit on a wired connection to the FIOS router - which, as discussed above, provided a fast connection to the Internet).

Switching back to "old" FIOS router as this new one offered no improvement/fix and don't see the need to change every device I own to connect to the "new" device.

Update:
Bought this

Amazon

Amazon

Delivery on Tuesday. Fingers crossed...

LIH Prem

Good idea to get a separate router.

If the TP-link travel router solves your connectivity problems, you might want something faster/better with a gigabit ethernet port. The travel ones are best for travel in a hotel room or to cover a small area. Also the one you bought doesn't support 802.11ac, there's a version of it that does, but if this works better, please consider something better with a gigabit ethernet port and multiple antennas for home use. Keep the travel one for travel.

What speed is your FIOS connection rated at? (What speeds do they promise at your service tier?)

-David

jsnydcsa

Per my bill from Verizon I'm on a 50 Up/50 Down plan. But, somewhere, likely during a chat with Verizon, I vaguely recall being told that I'm on a 75/75 plan. Either way, I've NEVER seen speeds approaching 50 or 75 on these two laptops. On other devices, I get all over the map. I suspect that's due to volume/use by multiple devices around the house

2020-08-31 Mid-Morning Update. Upon further review of my FIOS bill, I see I have a 75/75 free "upgrade" on my account. So, I suppose I'm at 75/75.

I'm rarely told that I have a good idea. Thanks.

Based on it's approx. $25 price, I figured this was a good "tester" to attempt to "fix" this problem. I could have sworn I had a 10+ year old Apple Airport Express lying around somewhere but couldn't find it. Perhaps that is a good thing as the Airport Express would have been so old, it would not have been a good tester for this situation. This travel router will at least give me some help/indication of a potential possible fix/workaround.

I appreciate the guidance on getting a non-travel router. I'm at Costco every once and a while and will check (and of course, Amazon ...). I really don't want to spend upwards of $100-$200 on some gaming rig speed/cast a signal all over the neighborhood behemoth. Just something that "works" with these two machines.

I was discussing all of this with a tech saavy neighbor (who was actually an installer for a major company, many moons ago). He couldn't think of why that would be the case. He also said I should just get on FIOS chat and demand a newer/better router/modem from them. Sign a "contract" sure. But, get a newer/better one for free.

Anywho, travel one arrives Tuesday. Until then....

Continued thanks for all advice and ideas.

gfunkdave

OK, let's take a minute here.

1. Don't ever base your speed testing on a wifi connection, doubly so if you're in a densely populated area with lots of wifi networks. Wifi introduces too many other factors that can impact your test results. Always use a wired connection for speed testing.
2. Try completely uninstalling the wifi card driver on the laptops in question, and reinstalling. In Windows 10, press Window+E to open a new explorer window, then right click This PC and choose Manage, then choose Device Manager, then expand the Network Adapters group, right click the Wifi card and choose Uninstall Device. Reboot the computer, go back into the Device Manager, and right click anywhere on the right side of the window and choose Scan for Hardware Changes to reinstall it.
3. Have you tried changing the wifi channels being used? The 2.4GHz network should use channels 1, 6, or 11 with a 20MHz channel width. Also try giving the 5GHz network a different name so you can be sure of connecting directly to it, and see if that helps your issues.

I agree a separate router would be a good plan but using a cheapie travel router won't give you a good experience. And if you do wind up using a separate router then be sure to set your Fios modem to bridge mode.

jsnydcsa



Understood, I'm certainly in a crowded area with lots of WiFi access points and devices using them. So, I ran an Ookla speedtest with a wired connection (WiFi off) on one of the Dell laptops. Ping of 11 ms, Download of 73.03 Mbps and Up of 87.51 Mbps. Others were using my particular Wifi network on the FIOS router as well. This speed test is also pretty consistent with my attempts last week to use wired connection to test various problems last week.





Done. I uninstalled the wifi adapter and checked the box "Uninstall Drivers" on the confirmation screen to uninstall the device. Shutdown. Powered up. But, when I went back into Computer Management, the Wifi Card was already back there without me having to "scan" for it. So, I right clicked on the card and clicked scan for hardware changes. A very quick pop up came up without the chance for me to read it. I right clicked and clicked update driver. And "Search automatically for drivers." Response "The best drivers for your device are already installed." Restarted computer. FWIW restart seemed to take a lot longer than in the past (no indication why - such as updating windows rotating dots-of-death) - perhaps 1 minute v. 15 seconds. When I attempted to re-connect to the WiFi network, it asked me for the network security key (which had previously been "remembered" by Windows). Connected to wifi. Took a long time for Firefox to load Google home page (.... this isn't looking promising....). Went to Ookla speedtest page. Ping 22 ms, Download 0.95 Mbps, Upload 29.81 Mbps. So, we're still at .... terrible.





Last week, FIOS chat/tech support claimed they were, inter alia, changing the channel on my router remotely to try and "fix" my problems. As you might imagine, whatever they did, it didn't.





Went to this site to find out about wifi channels.

https://www.howtogeek.com/197268/how...rating-system/



I'm going to try and attach photo to this post/thread of what I got from my Mac's Wireless Diagnostics.



Silly me - in order to try and access the router to change the channel, I tried to access the router via the Dell over wifi. It never connected. So, switched over to the working/good speed/connection Apple Mac.



Then this ...

https://www.howtogeek.com/197382/how...n-fios-router/



On the router, it gave me a choice of channels 1-11. I frankly don't know whether I'm on a 2.4 or 5.0 network.

Oh, wait, there's a page for that as well...

https://support.pulsegrow.com/help/h...-or-5-ghz-wifi

See another attempt at attaching a photo to this thread. But, to summarize, I'm on 2.4 on channel 6 (which should be "good"). So, I'm going to try channel 11 instead. Changed from "Automatic" to channel 11.

Ookla speedtest on Mac

Ping 14ms, Down 28.81 Mbps, Up 45.10 (over Wifi)

Ookla speedtest on restarted Dell

Ookla web site took FOREVER to load (compared to near instant load of page on Mac).

Ping 18ms, Down 1.29 Mbps, Up 21.74 Mbps



Dang It!



BTW - Changed that channel situation on FIOS Router back to "Automatic" rather than sitting on channel 11 all the time. Rebooted router. Now back to channel 6.





Thanks again re: "good plan"... I really just want to see if the travel router "helps" at all. I'll basically sit myself next to the travel router to ensure no distance/interference to see if there's any improvement. Based on comments above and this post, I'm thinking I'm going to want a 5.0 router when I do buy something "better" than the travel router.

But, this "bridge" thing seems VERY scary


ESPECIALLY since I have FIOS internet and TV and other web pages indicate that setting up the router as a bridge will at least partially disable FIOS TV.



Never ends.

LIH Prem

what does this mean? "Others were using my particular Wifi network on the FIOS router as well." Anybody else using your wifi is going to limit your overall bandwidth. You have setup security on your wifi network, right? Do the FIOS routers automatically export public wifi networks in addition to your own?

Also, I have a similar configuration at home, with cable. A cable modem (my own) connected to a separate router which creates my home network and wifi. In this case you want to turn off the router part of your device, otherwise you have 2 devices trying to be a router for your home network, which leads to other problems. So not sure what you mean by the part about not setting the verizon router to bridge mode. Surely there's setup support from VZW for your proposed configuration? That video is talking about something else where you use two routers to create a bridge between them.

-David

LIH Prem

Found this on reddit .. they explain how to do it, though all you really need is a moca adapter so your set top boxes can access the internet to get their guide data. You can consider that later if you want to. Tread carefully if you don't understand this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fios/commen...r_bridge_mode/