SRP527W Wireless lan requires frequent restarts or slows to a crawl/won't allow attachment.

Question

Hi all,
Have an SRP527W that I've had a couple of years,
Model:
SRP527W, ADSL2+ AnnexA, 802.11n ETSI, 2FXS/1FXO
Version ID:
V03
Hardware Version:
4.0.0
Boot Version:
1.1.17 (Jan 4 2010 - 21:15:46)
Firmware Version:
1.01.29 (002) Mar 29 2013
ADSL Firmware Version:
0.78.0
Recovery Firmware:
1.01.20 (011)
Setup Wizard Version:
20110728.00
As indicated in the subject, wireless users are finding that it is either unattachable (shows up in the list but fails to attach) or if you manage to authenticate and get in, it's painfully slow or simply drops out.  Security is WPA-PSK.   Only noticed the issue after a couple of Windows 8 laptops came into the household, but the problem still seems to be there when they are off so not sure if they are connected in some way or not.  Updated to the latest firmware - no change.   Wired connections are fine and when it's initially restarted, so is the wireless, seems to happen sometime after wireless services are restarted.  Only the one Wireless SSID, nothing fancy, max users around 5, all on laptops or the odd pad.   I changed channels done narrow wide etc, (using mixed mode - some Wireless N laptops some Wireless B/G.   Nothing seems to make any difference.  No log entries until the Wireless system is restarted, doesn't require a reboot of the router, just a SUBMIT of the existing wireless settings to force it to restart. 
It seems to be getting worse, any suggestions as to how I should troubleshoot this appreciated, there seems to be no obvious cause.
TIA  Geoff

Answer 1

There is only one other WLAN in range (neighbour).  It IS overlapping (I've tried narrow but it seems to make no difference), but it's been there for years, never had an issue from it before.  Signal strength is -70dBm v -60dBm for my router, so that could be an issue, however it's odd that it's never been a problem until now.   AFAIK, that router hasn't changed in years (Bigpond - whatever they use now).
Any suggestion welcome, - I can see it seems not to matter if the signal is full strength or not.  3 feet or 30 feet from the router the effect is the same, put it that way.
I'll see if I can relocate the router, it's on the side closest to the neighbour, unfortunately this will be non trivial as the phone line for the DSL only goes into that room (master bedroom).
As you can see, they are on Ch 6, slap in the middle of the band, I've now moved to 11 +13 but at present I can't 'see' my WLAN at all, may need to reset the router as submit restarted it fine according to the router, but the laptop which is on a wired lan, can't 'see' my own WLAN at the moment, but it 'sees' the neighbour's just fine.   As you can see, the neighbour is slap in the middle of the blasted band, (default for the modem/router probably).  I'll try narrow again or try restricting us to G instead of N,  but it's clearly not an optimum solution even if that works.
I'll try a reboot of the router and see what happens.  
Cheers
Geoff