Router overloaded or Wifi/chipset dieing?

I think my router is either dieing or become overloaded from too many devices. I'm leaning more towards dieing.
I'll give details to enable anyone who replies to help to know more about my setup.
ISP Sky llu unlimited router is a old D link they used to supply for a short time quite a many years ago.
Router at master socket connected via standard filter along with a dect phone (used for years never interfered with router before so i doubt it is the phone)
Router has two ethernet cables connected.

Ethernet port 4 goes to a ipcam that has a rule set for it to aways get the same lan ip via its mac.
Router is set to not respond to ping, upnp turned off also external management, whatever u call it where you can access router from wan is turned off.
I left wifi ssid sky default and wpa2 was selected by default. However i did increase the wpa2 key to 24 digits.

2nd Ethernet port in use is 1 it goes to a 8 port D link switch which is connected to a smart tv, and two windows 7 computers. and that is all on switch. I don't believe switch is playing a part in any of this.

Wifi devices connected to it are. One tablet, a smartphone, wii u, another smart tv and a laptop.

That means in house there are 4 ethernet connected devices 3 via switch and 4th due to ipcam.
Wifi another 5 so upto 9 devices.

What has been occuring past 3-4 day's is while router stays in sync and is having no issues with noise margins attenuation etc line staying stable connection up etc. my Devices all my wifi devices have started dropping connection (accept my laptop for some reason. It has a good Intel wifi chipset maybe that helps?)
Rebooting and reseting router has not helped.
Ethernet seems to be affected but much less. Only Ethernet issue i have noticed is my computers lose access to the ipcam it vanishes from attached devices list which has never occurred before.

So from that i believe it is the router. But is it just overloaded from too many devices connecting and disconnecting and being used non stop. Or is it dieing it is quite old now?
Cheers for any replies.

Blackmesa8

Edited by deleted (Sat 02-Aug-14 10:11:23)

With access to a console on the device to see CPU load and temperature figures hard to say, i.e. we are guessing.

One thing, have you or neighbour added something new wireless wise in the period since it started playing up, particularly a WiFi router using 40 MHz banding

Thanks for reply. I don't know how to access the routers console. Sky routers use Sky firmware and are pretty locked down.
My laptop's wifi which is the best in the house is only picking up two BT hub's and a talk talk router. Which is normal. So i can't see any new wifi devices.

Blackmesa8

NOTE: Some wifi client devices that you don't see in the list on the PC can sometimes cause issues. So if possible worth switching off WiFi in devices just to check that its not a particular one that is playing badly with the WiFi

But routers can get old, i.e. capacitors are often the failure point and if exposed to sunlight the current weather will not be helping temperature wise.

I'm wondering if you're right about the heat. It's much cooler today and is not playing up! my smartphone is working fine via wifi for first time. I may leave it 1-2 weeks see how it behaves before taking any action.

Blackmesa8

Ok router is def dieing. Remember i said it's not losing sync. There is no thunder or rain and it's doing that now non stop and while synced hardly routing data i've disconnected almost all devices from it. Not helping. Example of it not routing data properly or just packet loss but i'm sure it's my end.
Router interface was lagging while i was checking stuff too.
Ping test example of packet loss.

Pinging google.co.uk [74.125.230.120] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.230.120: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.230.120: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.230.120: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=58
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 74.125.230.120:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 20ms, Maximum = 20ms, Average = 20ms

While that looks stable I'm getting non stop packet loss and websites load very slowly. Something will appear fast then it will pause for 10 seconds then load rest of page.
Looks like i need a new router from Sky fast.

I know this maybe a silly question and probably isn't the cause, but is it a dual band wireless router if so can you try changing it to the other band, I.e not the normal 2.4GHz something like the 5GHz band, Microwave Ovens use 2.45GHz and if its noisy and old they may drift and cause interference on Wireless Lan Devices.

We had a similar issue round a friends house where their neighbour was an old couple that had what looked to be a very old microwave oven that was located not far from our friends wireless router, i.e. just a double brick wall, and every time the old couple cooked something it would drop the line and re-sync the router.

Just something to think about.

Edited by PaulKirby (Sat 02-Aug-14 18:30:29)