Unusual Wifi Issue

We have a 60mb Virgin Media cable connection which provides a reliable service, most of the time.

To see what i mean, there are intermittent periods where we seem to drop off the network - we can't access the net and the thinkbroadband ping monitor can't receive a response from our end.

These issues seem to happen every half our or so but only when a specific is on.

What I find odd is that whatever is causing it seems to kill our connection for a few minutes then everything returns to normal.

I've checked drivers for the internal wifi card and can't really find any clues as to what may be the problem.

I suspect, due to the repeated nature it has something to do with an app trying to update but don't see how it could have such a pronounced effect on our connection.

Has anyone seen this before? Got any ideas or tips so we can get to the bottom of it?

Throwing out the laptop in question isn't really an option!

In saying it is a wi-fi issue does this mean you do not get this problem using a wired (ethernet) connection?

If the TBB BQM can't get a response from the router then it suggests it is nothing to do with the client devices but is in fact either a connection or router issue. That would suggest a call to VM is in order.

Ian is correct. It will be the router that is replying to the pings that thinkbroadband send unless you have setup something to forward the icmp traffic to a computer on the network. So it does seem to indicate there is either something wrong with the service or the router is faulty.

You also have crazy latency constantly. Are you hammering the connection 24/7 or have torrent clients running or something? If that is a graph of an idle connection then either there is really bad congestion in your area or something is wrong.

Another point.... When it goes down, do your wifi clients disconnect? What I mean is, do they actually loose connectivity to the superhub and start scanning for another wifi network to connect to?

If so that would suggest that the superhub may be rebooting

In reply to a post by gomezz:

In saying it is a wi-fi issue does this mean you do not get this problem using a wired (ethernet) connection?

Fair question. If i'm honest, we've not tested that yet. I might hook it up for a day over the weekend to see what happens.

I'd tend to agree but find it striking that it only occurs when the suspect laptop is powered up. It doesn't happen at any other time.

In reply to a post by mattewan:

Ian is correct. It will be the router that is replying to the pings that thinkbroadband send unless you have setup something to forward the icmp traffic to a computer on the network. So it does seem to indicate there is either something wrong with the service or the router is faulty.

You also have crazy latency constantly. Are you hammering the connection 24/7 or have torrent clients running or something? If that is a graph of an idle connection then either there is really bad congestion in your area or something is wrong.

We let the hub respond.

In the last 18 months we've had about four or five hubs replaced - for no good reason, It turned out there was a signal issue so they fitted a device internally which seemed to resolve the problem.

These periodic disconnected have only emerged recently.

Never noticed issues with latency, we don't download much directly, we have two laptops, a tivo and two Now TV boxes connected (not to mention a Samsung S3 and iphone) we never have performance issues (i.e. slow pages or downloads) outside of these disconnect issues.

In reply to a post by mattewan:

Another point.... When it goes down, do your wifi clients disconnect? What I mean is, do they actually loose connectivity to the superhub and start scanning for another wifi network to connect to?

If so that would suggest that the superhub may be rebooting

They don't! It definitely loses its internet connectivity but the wifi side remains connected.

OK, so it could be a faulty network card in the laptop causing some sort of flood on the router causing it to fail. Definitely try disabling the wireless on the laptop and connecting wired as that would rule in or out any problems with the wireless adapter.