Reduced signal strength

Hello,
I noticed with my time capsule 2TB that in certain spots in my apartment the signal strength dropped significantly. On my IPhone it went in average down by 2 rings, my iMAC in two rooms away is even loosing sometimes the connection. Does somebody now about this, in case not I think maybe there is an interference, is there a workaround by which I don’t lose speed?
Thanks
Philipp

Two walls will absorb, on average, 40-50% of the wireless signal strength.
If you think the problems are elsewhere, then you are likely picking up wireless interference from another new WiFi network near you, cordless phones, other electronic devices, etc.
See this Apple support document for more details and suggestions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1365

Similar Messages

Reducing signal strength/distance?

I didn't see anything in the manual PDF about reducing the strength of the broadcast signal, in order to minimize the potential number of unintentional recipients. Possible?

open airport utility...
select your base station...
click on the "wireless" tab...
click the "wireless options" button...
reduce the "transmit power" percentage as desired...
click "ok"...
click "update"...

Closed Network Reduces Signal Strength ?

On my AEBS I am using WPA2 Personal and had closed my network. I noticed that closing the network reduced my signal strength by 20 per cent. Why is there such a significant reduction ?
Since a closed network is still broadcasting and therefore is detectable, is there any point at all in closing your network ?
PowerBook 15.2, 1.33GHz, 1.5G RAM, 60GB Mac OS X (10.4.6) AEBS,AE

...is there any point at all in closing your network ?
No, absolutely no benefit at all.

Signal Strength Problems - 1310

I've got a site with six 1310's installed. Prior to Hurricane Katrina we've had no problems with the setup.
Since the hurricane, we've replaced all but two of the units (those two didn't get flooded). On the units that were replaced, we also replaced the antenna's (12dBi omni's) and the cable's (100' ULL).
We are getting really poor signal strength, -85 to -90 dBm. The maximum distance between root and non-root's is about 425 feet with clear line of sight. I don't have a good calculation of Fresnel zone, but since it is 28ft at 2.8 miles, I think I'm clear on this also.
I've two non-roots that are about 200 feet away from root, on start-up they have a signal strength of about -50 dBm, but over 10-15 minutes, they degrade to -85 dBm.
The Cisco engineer I was working with was thrown in the towel, saying he doesn't know anything about antenna's.
I did a site survey and didn't come up with any interference.
Anyone have any clues?
Thanks,
Westley

Thanks for the pictures, it helps a lot to see how things are layed out.
The move to replace 200' of low loss to 100 feet of Ultra low loss was probably a Very Good Thing and should have increased the signal strength considerably.
Grounding is very important, if only for the safety aspects. "Lightning Arrestors" don't stop lightning; they bleed off static electricity and (tend to) reduce the space charge that can accumulate on exposed elements.
It's always a good idea to put in a segment of fiber between the APs and the wired network to prevent the zap from killing the rest of the network (and maybe the phones too ....).
Check the coax for kinks (or places that were kinked), sharp bends, broken jacket, etc. At Gig+ frequencies, any malformed section of cabling an have a significant impact on the propagation of the signal.
Check each connector to make sure there isn't any "stuff" that is causing a casual short between the center conductor and the shield. Look closely, wire fragments from the braid can be pretty hard to see.
Also make sure that the center pin is ~level with the surrounding sleeve. Sometime the center pin is driven back into the connector (i.e., bad termination) and is not making sufficient contact.
The "starts strong and tapers off" symptom can only be something related to power, a failing component, heat (causing a component to break down), or some safety mechanism (i.e., high SWR causing the transmitter to throttle back)....
Try another known good power brick,
Try another antenna (any antenna)
and see if the symptoms change.
Probably the most suspicious places would be the connections around the arrestor, and the connection from the coax to the antenna pigtail.
I looked at the pattern of your new antennas:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps469/prod_installation_guide09186a0080148acf.html
The "E-Plane" drawings are the "side view," the "H-Plane" is the "top view". Imagine the line from the center of the chart to the "90" (bottom) is your mast.
Anyway, the short version is: Check the cable and connections carefully (especially connections and the arrestors).
Second to that, make sure the power supply is stable.
It's not likely to be an IOS issue (but I'm a big fan of staying as current as possible).
Check it out and let us know if you find anything ...
Good Luck
Scott

Problems with poor wifi signal strength, need help?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated? This is a lengthy explanation. Thanks in advance.
I have a 3rd generation Airport Extreme wirelessly bridged to a 4th generation Time Capsule. I have noticed only mild increase in signal strength. Surprisingly I have only 1 – 2 bars of signal strength when standing next to the bridged Airport Extreme. There are areas of the house that continue to have very weak coverage ranging from 0 – 2 bars depending on the day and others that continue to have no wifi coverage.
The house has Cat 5 cable in all rooms. Most rooms only have a phone jack wired to the end of the Cat 5 cable but two rooms have data ports. All the wires (phone and data) run to the same junction box and are connected to, what appears to be, a simple parallel bridge. (There are a couple unused access points on the bridge. A few years back, I ran an additional line for a phone by simply pressing the colored wire into the corresponding site and the phone works fine)
It was suggested to plug the two routers directly into the data ports rather than have them communicate wirelessly. When doing this, I had no signal at the other end and the phone stopped working.
What is the best way to fix the weak wifi signal problem?
1.     Do I need to tweak my current wireless set up? (FYI, In the Airport Utility, both devices are listed and have green dots)
2.     Do I need to buy an additional Airport Extreme to bridge to the Time Capsule to cover the current dead areas? (unless there is something I should do different in the set up, hesitant to do this, since I have only seen a marginal boost with my current bridge)
3.     Would it be better to use the existing cat 5 cable and create a functional “hard wired” network that I can use to connect the two wireless routers? (If this is the answer, is this something relatively simple that I can do myself or should I hire a professional?)
Thanks again.

The house has Cat 5 cable in all rooms. Most rooms only have a phone jack wired to the end of the Cat 5 cable but two rooms have data ports. All the wires (phone and data) run to the same junction box and are connected to, what appears to be, a simple parallel bridge. (There are a couple unused access points on the bridge. A few years back, I ran an additional line for a phone by simply pressing the colored wire into the corresponding site and the phone works fine)
It was typical awhile back, where you have "whole-house" Ethernet running back to a patch panel to use the cable runs for both data and phone service. This works fine as long as you only wanted 100 Mbps Ethernet (or Fast Ethernet) connections for data. Gigabit Ethernet requires all of the twisted pairs in the CAT-5 cable and cannot share any of those pairs for phone lines.
So any wall outlet that is wired for both phone & data will not provide Gigabit Ethernet ... unless there are at least two CAT-5 cables going to that outlet. I am only mentioning this as to the potential for reduced bandwidth on some of your connections as all of your AirPort base stations are Gigabit capable.
As far as "weak" signals, I am assuming that you have configured all of your AirPort base stations for a roaming and NOT an extended wireless network ... correct? Even if you already have, please review the following Apple Support article to make sure you didn't miss anything. Please post back your results.

Loss of AP signal strength after upgrading to Clean Air on 5508's.

After upgrading three 5508's (which support 150 AP's) from WLC/WCS version 6.0.182.0 to version 7.0.98.0, our users complained about low signal strength. Our pre-upgrade RSSI benchmarks confirmed a decrease of -10dB to -20dB signal strength across all AP's, effectively causing wireless networking to be unusable in key areas.
After confirming our Global signal strength settings in WCS and WLC's were still at the same settings they were at prior to upgrading, we contacted our VAR for advice.
He suggested that perhaps the upgrade caused all AP's to run at a lower signal strength. He was right.
At his recommendation, we reconfigured the WCS to set two AP's to use Individual mode instead of Global mode. This is found in Radios/802.11b/g/n/Tx Power Level Assignment. Setting them to level 2 resulted in an average -15dB increase of RSSI, solving our problems in the test environment. In one case we saw an increase of -30 dB for one AP.
The signal strength loss due to the upgrade was not expected, based on the upgrade documentation. Now we must change the settings manually on the remaining 148 AP's.
I'd like to hear from anyone else who has experienced a decrease in signal strength after upgrading to Clean Air 7. If you have information from Cisco that documents this problem, I'd REALLY like to read it.
Hoping this may help you,
RS

Hi Rick,
this is not "expected" or "on purpose". It just happens that improving the RRM algorithm makes things better for 90% of the people but maybe worse for 10% of the people.
This is why you can set the Tx power treshold on the RRM or set the overal RRM algorithm sensitivity.
If you put the Tx power treshold to a louder number (=closer to 0) then the APs will reduce less their power level.
Hope this helps.
Nicolas
===
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Battery , time , signal strength bar is not getting displayed in home screen , these will be displayed only when i click on any app. Can u let me know the setting change ?

Battery , time , signal strength bar is not getting displayed in home screen , these will be displayed only when i click on any app. Can u let me know the setting change ?

Did you check the Zoom setting?
Have you tried a reset (reboot)? Hold HOME and SLEEP until an Apple logo appears.
If it isn't Zoom and a reboot doesn't help try Settings/General/Reset - Reset all settings

Does the Note 4 have better signal strength than the Note 3?

I have a note 3 that continually drops calls and bounces from 4 bars to 1 bar over the course of time with the phone being stationary. I believe my problems started with the last software update (as documented in numerous forums) but both Verizon and Samsung give no credibility to problems raised on internet forums. The people on these forums apparently "lack technical expertise" was my take on their explanation.
So far they, Verizon, is following exactly the same course of action to try to correct my issues as other folks have stated they tried with tech support. Replacement of the SIM card did nothing. Software reflash is next followed by a factory reset with no additional apps allowed to download to the phone.
I have not looked at a Note 4 nor do I know anyone that has one so I am reaching out for information. What is the Note 4 running for software and if you owned a Note 3 previously did you experience signal strength issues where you felt you shouldn't have? If you had, or have, weak signal strength were you able to compare it to another android phone on the same carrier to see if the problem was specific to you phone?
I understand the bars are not the best indication of signal strength but they are a quick indication. Under the mobile networks I usually have -100+ dBm and 30 +asu. If it is a software caused problem neither Verizon or Samsung knows anything about it which is good news because they should be able to correct it. I have my doubts the people on the forums are the crackpots they make them out to be. I suggested they are people like me who are desperate for help with a problem Verizon gave up on.
If the Note 4 is better I know what to ask for when they hit the end of the road with me. That will happen software and reset wise in the next week then I am off to "getting someone else's problem phone" sent to me for a swap. Last time they tried this the junk phone they sent didn't even recognize the sim card!
Thanks for any facts you can provide about your experience with the Note 3 and Note 4 as related to signal strength in both areas with strong and marginal service.

I have an iPhone 6 on Sprint for work and it stinks, I don't like the service or the phone. Had an iPhone 5s prior and although I didn't care for it it was still better than the 6.
I had a software reflash done at Best Buy and a factory reset at Wireless world. Reflash went smooth but I should have done the factory reset myself or had Best Buy do it. It will take me days to get the phone back to where I had it. Kies software from Samsung does backup the phone but you lose all the changes you have made to the Home screens and some other apps need attention to get them functional.
Signal strength remains the same but need to use it for a few days to know if it still drops calls and breaks up. If it does next on the list is running in safe mode for a few days to see if an app is causing it. If the problem still persists I have the choice of replacing it with insurance, money out of my pocket. Sending it to Samsung for testing and repair (if necessary), or having Verizon send a replacement refurbished phone. Probably will go with the refurbished phone and hang on to mine for a few days as well. If the refurb isn't any better I will return it and then send mine to Samsung.
According to Wireless World the insurance company will pay me for my phone if I trade it in before a year is up. May get up to 50% of full retail. Not sure what to trade it in for if I go that route.

Iphone in Great Britian discovers Apple tech problem - Signal Strength -

November 25, 2007
Signal trouble: British iPhone mystery
Is O2’s network to blame, or Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone?
That’s the question posed by more than a few British iPhone owners who purchased the device in the past two weeks and have been struggling ever since to get decent telephone reception on it.
The problem surfaced two days after the phone went on sale in the U.K. when “Matlock” in Derbyshire started a discussion thread on Apple’s support board entitled “UK 02 (poor signal strength/reception problems)”:
My iphone can barely pick up even the slightest signal, although on occasion can pick up 3 ars, only for it to drop out again. I have two other 02 phones, a Sony Erricson and a Nokia n95 with no reception problems at all. Is anyone experiencing same problem with their iphone, I would like to hear from you. (link)
Two weeks later, Matlock’s query has received more than 100 replies (and 3,723 pageviews), most of them registering similar complaints. Some users found that reinstalling the software made a difference. When others returned their phones for new ones, the problem went away (although some reported that the new phones were no better).
Definitive U.K. sales figures are not available, but O2 reported that it sold “tens of thousands” of iPhones the first weekend it was available.
Several posters on the Apple discussion board volunteered that unlike the complainants, they were getting great reception on their iPhones. And many owners with signal problems expressed pleasure with how well the device performed its other functions.
But unlike American iPhone owners, who tend to blame any reception headaches on AT&T’s (T) cellular network, the assumption in the U.K. seems to be that the signal problem is Apple’s. The impression is reinforced by O2, which has been referring callers directly to the manufacturer.
One clue is that many British iPhone owners can, like Matlock, compare the signal strength on their iPhone with other cellphones using the same network (one user even posted photos showing the phones side by side). Another is that the indicator on the iPhone tends to jump to five bars as soon as it is placed in the charging dock, which suggests that the problem is battery related. As user Richard Catledge points out:
It says in the manual that phone signal is adjusted to the minimum power when not in use, just enough to detect the incoming pings, then it will power up to get the best quality call. It is digital, so as long as the signal power is strong enough to reconstruct at the other end, more power is pointless. I suspect this is what you are seeing, or a slightly flakey implementation.
Meanwhile, the consensus on the discussion board is that unhappy owners should let Apple know. Writes one user who posts as ::…SAM…::,
The only way to get anything done about it is if people that have poor signal problems is to take your phone back and get it replaced. The more phones they get back, the sooner they will do something to fix the problem. Emails and complaints are fine, they can be put in a folder, high handset return numbers cant be so easy to hide under the rug.
Thanks to InformationWeek’s Alexander Wolfe for the link. See his report here.
Filed

Interesting post. My previous phone was an 02 XDA Exec, a smart phone based upon a common handset (forget which one), but the smart phone before that was the same. They all had one thing in common - poor reception.
tbh, I think its an inherent problem with smart phones. However, with my iPhone I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary really. Its better than the XDA, at least the iPhone doesn't drop out completely!
But compare it to a normal handset and the normal handset will normally have a much better reception strength.

IPhone 5s call signal strength is 3 bars and my calls are breaking up?

I switched from an iPhone 4s to an iPhone 5s and now my iPhone signal strength is 3 bars and my calls are breaking up? what gives?
I live on top of a hill in a major metropolitan city and my carrier has always been Verizon and my call signal strength has always been 5 bars and occassionally on a cloudy rainy day I had 4 bars. Since upgrading to the 5s my call signal strength at my home has never gone past 3 bars even when Wi-Fi is connected. When W-Fi is turned off and LTE service kicks in, the call signal strength flutters between 2-3 bars and if I am on a call, the person on the other end is telling me I am breaking up. This has never happened with my iPhone 4, my iPhone 4s. Is anyone else noticing signal problems?

I am also having the same exact issue. I had an iPhone 4S with Sprint servince and always had at least 4 bars of service (4 dots after iOS7 upgrade) and I am now fluctuating between 1 and 2 dots on my new iPhone 5S. I am also having people I am on the phone with tell me that I sound like I'm in a tunnel and or that I am breaking up. I am also hearing the breakup of voice service even when speaking to someone on a landline. I took my first iPhone 5S back to the store and traded it in for a new one and am having the same exact problem with this new 5S phone. I was told by the salesman at the store that the problem was due to the 5S is using different towers than the 4S and that the new towers for the 5S were still being implemented. Do I know this to be true or necesarily believe this? No. Do I hope it's true or that Apple will come up with a fix for this problem in the very, very near future? Yes. Apple, what is going on with my service? It's obvious that it's happening to users from all of the major American networks.

I updated to IOS 5 and now my signal strength drops sometimes clear to zero when I open an app.

I updated my Iphone 4 with the IOS 5 operating system. When I use an application, including the phone app, my signal strength bars will drop from 4 or 5 bars to 1 bar and sometimes to no bars and searching for a signal. When I exit the app the bars return tto what they were before. I have an AT&T plan that operates in Mexico which is where I am now. In Mexico it operates on the TelCell network. Before updating the op system I had no problems with the signal strength dropping when I used an app.

Hello timfromharris,
Have you gone to your date and time settings and verified that "set automatically" has been checked?
If you don't know where to go, it's Settings -> General -> Date and Time.
Good luck!
Brendon

BT Vision box signal strength indicator

Just received the latest black BT Vision box replacing an older version. Old version worked really well, good picture. New one using same leads and aerial point pixellates at times horribly. The signal quality indicator usually indicates 100% and is green in colour. The signal strength indicator varies: sometimes is shows over 70dBuV and is red, other times it is around 64dBuV and is orange and occasionally it is around 56dBuV an is green. What should it be? It pixellates even when the indicator is green. I had a big new roof aerial fitted a few years ago and there is a booster/distributor box in the roof - currently running just two tv's off it, although rarely at the same time.
Why does the new box not work when the old one did? What do I need to do to cure this? Is the signal too strong or too weak?! Any ideas out there?
Thanks, Graham

Thanks for the feedback. I have tried splitting the aerial with a passive splitter - perhaps marginally better but difficult to say. Even tried splitting again to the point where the signal was showing weak. The strength indicator seems to have a colour coding, starting off red with a weak signal, going orange, then green, then as the signal is stronger it goes orange again and back to red when too strong. I have hit the green optimum region and gone either side of it. Pixellation is always there. Reading all the posts on here about this, I am coming to the conclusion that I am not going to be able to fix this.
I may ask BT to reinstate the old box, it worked perfectly - I only asked for a replacement so that I can have BT Sports and the option of Sky sports. I will just have to stream BT sport to my laptop if I want it. I am a little disappointed about this though.

Signal strength finder via black bt vision box

I have recently changed from sky (could be a big mistake) and have had constant troubles ever since.
The latest is I am getting pixelation on all tv channels.
Looking at the online "help" I have checked the aerial connections (all good), Aerial (brand new £50) and pointed in the correct direction. The next item was to use the handy signal strength checker as per BT's instructions.
However these do not appear to match what appears on screen.
You can check your Freeview signal using your Vision+ box, but please be aware that checking your signal will interrupt any recordings that are in progress. You only need to check the signal of one channel in a multiplex to know what signal you'll be getting for the whole multiplex.
How to check your signal:
Press the BT Vision button on your remote control.
DID THIS
Scroll across to Settings.
SCROLL ACROSS GOES TO TV SO I SCROLLED DOWN.
NO "SETTINGS" PAGE SO WENT TO "HELP & SETTINGS"
Select TV Settings.
DID THIS
Select the DTT Signal Strength page.
NO "DTT SIGNAL STRENGTH" PAGE THE ONLY OPTIONS ARE 1/sCAN FOR CHANNELS, 2/ CHANNEL MANAGEMENT, 3/ TV SHAPE.
The minimum signal strength and quality you need for a good picture is:
Signal Strength - 55%
Signal Quality -70%
Am I going mad ?
Can anyone help please?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

There is good news and bad news. The good news is that you are not going mad. The bad news is that you have a new version of the software which unfortunately doesn't include a signal strength tool.
Does your TV have a Freeview tuner? If so, try using signal strength on that.
Your signal could be too weak or too strong. If it's too weak you may be able to use a booster. If it's too strong you can use an attenuator.

My iPod touch 4th gen. Keeps giving me the error message "cannot connect to the app store when I sign in. I can open the app store and browse it but I can't download anything. I have full signal strength with my wi-fi and safari is working perfect.

My iPod touch 4th gen. Keeps giving me the error message "cannot connect to the app store when I sign in. I can open the app store and browse it but I can't download anything. I have full signal strength with my wi-fi and safari is working perfect. I turned it off and restarted it 3 times now. I have an iPad 2 and the app store works flawlessly with it. What is going on?

Same here on my lpad2. Can access the web just fine from browsers but cannot install new apps or updates in appl store. Seeing a few others reporting same issue tonight so likely an apple server issue and staff will notice it in network monitors and fix it...sometime this weekend.
Rob

Mid 2010 iMac Wifi signal strength issue

I am having issues maintaining a robust Wifi signal on my 21.5 inch 2010 iMac with 10.6.5 installed.
my symptoms are very similar to what is described in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2596933&tstart=0
in addition to that I am experiencing the following symptoms:
can't print to HP wireless printer
remote app for iphone doesn't find the iMac
mobile mouse remote app doesn't find the iMac
can't ping the iMac from Windows laptops on the same subnet or from the router itself
accumulation of send and receive errors in Network Utility
these symptoms occur after the machine has been connected to wifi for 30 minutes or so. Turning off Airport and turning it back on temporarily fixes the issue. the Mac firewall is turned off.
as reported in the post mentioned above, signal strength for my Windows laptops and other devices is consistently -25 but the iMac signal strength fluctuates wildly.
One more troubleshooting step that I have taken is to install Windows 7 on a boot camp partition to rule out the iMac hardware and physical location as the issue. While booted into Windows the iMac did not exhibit any of the above symptoms and held a steady -25 strength signal.
Lastly I am using a TrendNet Wireless N Access Point but have also tried an Apple Extreme and Express (both N). I've tried 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz on various channels. I've even tried dialing down to G mode.
I've read other posts about DNS settings, Static instead of DHCP addressing, etc. and none of these has solved this issue.
Thoughts anybody? TIA

Update concerning additional troubleshooting steps that I have taken.
1) did a clean install of OS 10.6.3 onto an external drive and managed to replicate the issue....so that rules out apps, preference files, etc.
2) managed to get a little bit more stability by setting up an Airport Express in 5Ghz mode with Interference Robustness turned on and the multicast rate set at 9Mbps....of course ios devices don't do 5Ghz so I still have to run another AP...so not an acceptable solution.
What else do I need to do to prove that it's a Mac OS software issue?

Reduced signal strength

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