Qb needs dropping out of the window?

If the router has this option. Try switching off the routers automatic channel switching capability.

I am not sure that is going to be that relevant, most consumer access points usually only change at startup.. when it will listen to local interference or activity on specific channels... and choose an optimum one within the limitations of its design.

The best way is to implement overlapping cooperating Wifi access points that are Ethernet connections offering a low power multi zone Wifi... perhaps put an access point in each of the floor hall/landing .. and wire each of them back to a switch. Enable as an ESSID.. and you almost certainly will have reliable high density Wifi... Ubiquiti offer such devices... avoid mesh setups and extenders/repeaters if you can for streaming...

I had similar connectivity issues with my QB. Sent it back to Signals who tested it and all was fine there. Came back to Asgaard, and kept getting dropouts and no plays, especially on BBC, whether ethernet or wifi.

Theory was that the BBC buffering of digital broadcasts was struggling with local demand at the exchange and that there was little w e could do.

Since then, Plusnet have solved a problem at their end and the BBC have changed something, and all is ticket boo...for now!

3 Airport extremes...

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

I am not sure that is going to be that relevant, most consumer access points usually only change at startup.. when it will listen to local interference or activity on specific channels... and choose an optimum one within the limitations of its design.

The best way is to implement overlapping cooperating Wifi access points that are Ethernet connections offering a low power multi zone Wifi... perhaps put an access point in each of the floor hall/landing .. and wire each of them back to a switch. Enable as an ESSID.. and you almost certainly will have reliable high density Wifi... Ubiquiti offer such devices... avoid mesh setups and extenders/repeaters if you can for streaming...

What's wrong with Mesh? Since the demise of Apple's wifi provision. I was think ing that this might have to be my next course...

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

I am not sure that is going to be that relevant, most consumer access points usually only change at startup.. when it will listen to local interference or activity on specific channels... and choose an optimum one within the limitations of its design.

 

I thought these new fangled smart hubs continually monitor channel usage, and switch if appropriate.

Although, logically if your wifi useage is high, the hub will sense this and switch channel.

Switching off auto and manually selecting channels isn’t as complicated as rewiring the whole house. No great loss if it doesn’t work, simply revert to auto.

If your router “rejects the password” from a device that normally connects fine, then a router restart is required and that normally fixes it. This is the case even though everything else is connected to the internet and working fine.

best

David

The WiFi connection has been lost so far about a dozen times today.....

I think the only answer is to find a hardwiring solution.... 

which for me will be out with the power tools....

Running the Ethernet cable out through the wall, along the outside of the house and then in again through the wall is a fine solution.  You can get outside Ethernet cable, but unless it’s very exposed probably anything will be fine. Don’t bend it too tight and you want water to run off the cable and not into the holes in the wall, which you can seal with gunk as well.

As has already been said you can use a small Ethernet switch to give you more ports from your router. There are a number of forum members who have gone for a used Cisco switch on the grounds of sound quality, but personally I find the Netgear GS105 at about £20 on eBay or Amazon is fine and anyway you don’t have to put your Qb cable into the switch. You could use the switch to free up a router port for the Qb. The GS105 is completely plug and play. There is no configuring of anything involved.

best

David

WENGER2015,

First off try the over the mains solution I used that with my UQ2 for a good while and it is perfectly satisfactory and better than than infuriating dropouts.

David Hendon posted:

Running the Ethernet cable out through the wall, along the outside of the house and then in again through the wall is a fine solution.  You can get outside Ethernet cable, but unless it’s very exposed probably anything will be fine. Don’t bend it too tight and you want water to run off the cable and not into the holes in the wall, which you can seal with gunk as well.

As has already been said you can use a small Ethernet switch to give you more ports from your router. There are a number of forum members who have gone for a used Cisco switch on the grounds of sound quality, but personally I find the Netgear GS105 at about £20 on eBay or Amazon is fine and anyway you don’t have to put your Qb cable into the switch. You could use the switch to free up a router port for the Qb. The GS105 is completely plug and play. There is no configuring of anything involved.

best

David

... I have limited time due to work commitments, so i like the idea of a permanent fix...... when I get to sit down i like things to work...

hence the reason for Sky Box, my home office printer and Qb all potentially ‘ out of the window ‘...

I have my Sky box and my laser printer connected to Netgear switches and they all just work all the time.

Personally I wouldn't go anywhere near ethernet over mains. I always regard it as the last resort of the desperate. (The only time I ever resorted to it I was desperate. It wasn’t an audio application and it did work, albeit not particularly well, but I wasn’t happy with it being there,)

best

David

David Hendon posted:

I have my Sky box and my laser printer connected to Netgear switches and they all just work all the time.

Personally I wouldn't go anywhere near ethernet over mains. I always regard it as the last resort of the desperate. (The only time I ever resorted to it I was desperate. It wasn’t an audio application and it did work, albeit not particularly well, but I wasn’t happy with it being there,)

best

David

Quick question,  is the Netgear GS105 a managed or unmanaged switch?

It’s unmanaged. So it just works out of the box and in a home network that is all most of us need!

best

David

wenger2015 posted:

Willy posted:

Need one of these in the attic, and of course the associated cabling.

Willy.

Please explain more..... it may prevent me from having one of those ‘outer body experiences’ ...

Wenger,

It's one (of two) cabinets containing a 16 port gigabit Ethernet switch. There are multiple runs of Cat6 cable to pretty much every room in the house from one (or other) of these switches. My office/music room has 4 Ethernet sockets. The standalone workshop in the garden has wired Ethernet, even the new log cabin is wired.

Bottom line is that in our older house with 60cm+ thick walls wifi is a bit unreliable, even with four access points, so anything that can be cabled is.

The cabling to each room has been installed incrementally, generally scheduled when redecorating so I'm immediately painting over where I've tracked the wall to install cable.

Regards,

Willy.

PS In addition to the patch panel (at the bottom) where the cabling comes in, and the switch (above it with the lights on) there's also a small Linux server (top left) and a hard disk drive (top right) in the cabinet.

Willy posted:

wenger2015 posted:

Willy posted:

Need one of these in the attic, and of course the associated cabling.

Willy.

Please explain more..... it may prevent me from having one of those ‘outer body experiences’ ...

Wenger,

It's one (of two) cabinets containing a 16 port gigabit Ethernet switch. There are multiple runs of Cat6 cable to pretty much every room in the house from one (or other) of these switches. My office/music room has 4 Ethernet sockets. The standalone workshop in the garden has wired Ethernet, even the new log cabin is wired.

Bottom line is that in our older house with 60cm+ thick walls wifi is a bit unreliable, even with four access points, so anything that can be cabled is.

The cabling to each room has been installed incrementally, generally scheduled when redecorating so I'm immediately painting over where I've tracked the wall to install cable.

Regards,

Willy.

PS In addition to the patch panel (at the bottom) where the cabling comes in, and the switch (above it with the lights on) there's also a small Linux server (top left) and a hard disk drive (top right) in the cabinet.

What a superb set up.... impressive..

David Hendon posted:

It’s unmanaged. So it just works out of the box and in a home network that is all most of us need!

best

David

Many thanks David 

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but if you're using a 5Ghz channel on your wifi router, the QB won't be able to join it, only has 2.4Ghz channel.

Jonn posted:

The problem is using a wireless repeater to connect. The solution Is to connect directly to a WiFi router or as has been suggested, a wired connection.

Would you expect a wired connection from the Qb to a local wireless access point to resolve this?

ynwa250505 posted:

Jonn posted:

The problem is using a wireless repeater to connect. The solution Is to connect directly to a WiFi router or as has been suggested, a wired connection.

Would you expect a wired connection from the Qb to a local wireless access point to resolve this?

No.

best

David

I don’t have a QB, but I believe there will be one arriving in 3 or 4 weeks. I certainly won’t be very pleased if it doesn’t work flawlessly on WIFI, it does say ‘wireless speaker’ on the tin.

So, checking the settings on the router are optimal (virgin superhub 3), it appears the default setting for 2.4GHz is, manual selection, channel 11. However, switching to channel 1 has brought an obvious improvement. Web pages on mobile devices are loading noticeably quicker.

I recently bought a QB for the kitchen, mainly to replace my wife's basic radio. Not having ethernet to the kitchen I set it up to use Wi-Fi. On several occasions I thought I had got it working only to find out when I showed my wife how to use it that it simply didn't work.

Out of frustration I then set it up using PoE (which I don't normally use) and it works fine. I'm not overly happy with that because of potential degradation to my main system, but have not yet had time to assess whether using PoE has actually degraded that system. The only solution I would be happy with would be hard wired, but that means running ethernet outside the house (from upstairs front room to the kitchen, which is downstairs at the back). Sounds like a project for the spring!

SpyderTracks posted:

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but if you're using a 5Ghz channel on your wifi router, the QB won't be able to join it, only has 2.4Ghz channel.

That's interesting because 2.4Ghz is notoriously prone to just get effectively jammed when someone uses a cordless digital phone or microwave on the same horozontal plane as a wifi router. Hardly a suitable frequency for a device that is likely to end up on a kitchen counter. Made worse by often being near a shiny tiled corner tiled corner.

I actually decided against buying a property last month simply because it didn't have Ethernet ports in every room. The estimated cost of spidering ethernet was getting close to $100k due to the construction of the walls which would require them all being rehung and plastered. I simply wasn't prepared to put up with wifi as my sole means of connectivity again. 

If the OP lives somewhere with hollow walls where the mains cables to sockets can largely just be pulled through if tied to the old cables, It may be worth asking a sparky about how costly it would be to wire the hose for Ethernet. How easy this is is very hit and miss with properties in the UK. Would have been impossible in the Edwardian house I grew up in, but a house of the same period but different construction I lived in a while back in Sheffield proved no problem and the sparky had all 4 floors wired for ethernet in each room pretty quickly with a port near a mains socket in each room and all terminating near the fuse box where we stuck the router and switch. You never know unless you ask.

fatcat posted:

I don’t have a QB, but I believe there will be one arriving in 3 or 4 weeks. I certainly won’t be very pleased if it doesn’t work flawlessly on WIFI, it does say ‘wireless speaker’ on the tin.

So, checking the settings on the router are optimal (virgin superhub 3), it appears the default setting for 2.4GHz is, manual selection, channel 11. However, switching to channel 1 has brought an obvious improvement. Web pages on mobile devices are loading noticeably quicker.

 

 

Your Wi-Fi needs to work flawlessly if you want the Qb to operate correctly. Given that you have the time it may be worth checking the quality of the Wi-Fi in the place that you intend to put it.

Whilst I totally agree that an ethernet connection is the optimum way to connect these, I would add that I have the muso and previously had a patchy wireless setup using powerline adapters as my routers wifi range wasn't good enough for the size of the house. The powerlines were pretty poor and often needed resetting as they'd just drop the network, plus I needed loads of them around the house, wasn't a good solution.

After many months of research, I upgraded at the beginning of this year to a mesh system. I chose the Google Wifi in the end because it was renowned for it's consistent reliability for uptime trading off some overall wireless speeds that I wasn't bothered about.

I've got my router now with wireless disabled, then 3 google wifi hubs around the house carrying the wifi. I've not had one problem since implementing this. There are loads of options out there, a lot of people suggest the netgear Orbi's as being excellent, but I'd always recommend the Google Wifi's for overall reliability.

They also beamform, so will target the signal to most used locations.

There are tradoffs for running over wireless, you can only utilise 2.4GHz band, and you'll sacrifice high res playback to a max of 48KHz.

fatcat posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

I am not sure that is going to be that relevant, most consumer access points usually only change at startup.. when it will listen to local interference or activity on specific channels... and choose an optimum one within the limitations of its design.

 

I thought these new fangled smart hubs continually monitor channel usage, and switch if appropriate.

Although, logically if your wifi useage is high, the hub will sense this and switch channel.

Switching off auto and manually selecting channels isn’t as complicated as rewiring the whole house. No great loss if it doesn’t work, simply revert to auto.

No I don't think so, proper Dynamic Channel Assignment and Dynamic Bandwidth Selection use requires quite advanced setup to be optimal in a dynamic environment that is probably beyond most consumers. So yes I see commercial equipment using DCA and DBS but not consumer equipment - consumer equipment tends to do this at startup or boot with regard to channels - and bandwidth selection is determined in setup - wider channels offer greater throughput but more prone to interference,

Certainly I would not switch this functionality off on a consumer device unless you have scanned your local channels or interference... you could be giving your self performance throughput issues.