WIFI Channel Selection ?

Anybody know who controls the WIFI channel that gets used when a device connects to the Router ?

The reason I ask, about a week ago, my laptop which only has WIFI, has had instability in maintaining a connection. It drops out, resets itself and reconnects constantly. The WIFI is just about unusable. I also have another device my phone, which connects to the same WIFI band but never gets dropped. After further investigation the Phone connects to channel 153, while the laptop always connects thru channel 4. To complicate matters further, somebody close to my house has gotten a new router and the band in question also connects to channel 4. I have no idea who it is, but its signal strength is just as good if not better than my WIFI signal strength standing next to it. On my app that tests signal strength, I can set it to look at interference and guess who pops up, the new router in question. Could this be causing my drop out problems with my laptop ?

The reason I asked about channel selection, if I can get the laptop to connect to a different channel, maybe that will fix my problem ?

Any answers will be appreciated.

It depends upon the router. Log into your router and investigate. Mine has options to auto select or manual select channels.

storageman said:

Anybody know who controls the WIFI channel that gets used when a device connects to the Router ?

As the others posted, your WiFi router transmits on a channel and your devices connect to whatever that is.
- Most WiFi routers let you choose the channel to use.
- This utility can be very handy - NirSoft WifiInfoView - It shows you all the local signals so you can choose a channel that is relatively little-used by other local transmitters.
- Your router might also have a choice of 2.4GHz & 5GHz networks. Generally speaking, you'll have a better chance of finding a little-used channel in the 5GHz band.

Of course, it might be your WiFi adapter's driver causing your problems. Go to the computer OEM [assuming the WiFi adapter was fitted when you bought it] or the WiFi adapter maker [in other cases] and reinstall the driver even if it is the same version as your current one. You can also let Windows update search for drivers but I have more faith in the makers'.

Denis

The other problem is that it's not a one time fix you can change your channel today and if the other router is set to auto it may change at any time so your back in the same position

The Band is 5ghz for my laptop + my phone.

Well while I was waiting for some response, I also have a small 10" W10 tablet (ASUS Model). I fired it up because I need to use it tomorrow and decided to check what channel it was using. It connects on the 5ghz band and on channel 153, same as my phone. And this is probably why I haven't seen any WIFI problems here even though I don't use this device every day.

Its looking more and more like the device is requesting the channel, not the access point ?

However I will double check that I have the correct driver on the laptop in question, but downloading a driver could be a challenge.

Yep there was a new driver. I downloaded it on my desktop (Hardwired) thru it on a USB stick and installed it. We are running on it now.

Looking at it - its still on channel 4 but its the band is 5ghz, but it picked a different band name ??? The one it hooked up to before was called "Netgear02-5g". Now its hooked to a band called "Netgear02".

It has been 10min connected with no disconnects.

I'm going to watch this for a bit before I can make a positive conclusion.

I think I have a head ache !

Ok - after running 40min straight and I did beat the connection up via speed tests + listening to internet radio, it did fail. there are no error logs nothing.

The jury is still not out on this problem.

Check nearby router channels.

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wifi_i...tion_view.html

Then change your router settings to use a channel at least two away from other routers.

Personally i use this to check wi-fi:

Download Wireless Wizard 7.0

(Ad supported) means that a small ad might be displayed in the GUI when you use the program. It does not run in the background.

Update network profiles then run built in tests. See if anything stands out.