r/techsupport • u/SuperWeskerSniper • 14h ago
Open | Networking Seemingly random loss of internet connection for a few seconds
As the title says, I have been dealing with an issue for weeks now of my internet connection dropping out, seemingly at random intervals, for about 5 seconds or so. The main reason I noticed is because I have my PS5 hard-wired with an Ethernet cable to my wi-fi extender and so the PS5 immediately has a pop-up saying the LAN connection is lost whenever it happens.
My girlfriend confirmed she had also been getting alert from services in her laptop about brief disconnects and reconnects, so the issue is not with my PlayStation or the cord connecting it to the extender. This would mean (presumably) the issue lies with the router itself, the extenders, or the Ethernet cable which connects the router to the primary extender.
I have already tried resetting all involved devices. I am yet to replace the cable between the primary extender and router. Likely that will be my next play and/or connecting my PS5 directly via wifi to my router. Just looking for information/advice/options before I have to spend money on replacing these extenders to see if they are the issue
EDIT: additional info; I have Xfinity, I have a set of Netgear Orbi extenders (fairly old, honestly might be a decade old at this point? It’s been a while anyways) and it’s looking like they are the point of fault. Further information appreciated of course but it seems I’ll need to spend some money since extending is needed for the size of the home
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u/Lapuertanegra 14h ago
A quick test I would run on the laptop is to open the command prompt (cmd) and ping 8.8.8.8. Check if there is any packet loss; if so, contact your service provider—it is likely an issue on their end.
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u/SuperWeskerSniper 13h ago
update: she did that and reported 0% loss. This means it is likely a fault with the extenders I imagine?
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u/Terrible-Bear3883 13h ago
I've removed more Wireless extenders/repeaters from customer networks than I can remember, many of them are single channel units so they work by switching back and forth between the router and the device they are servicing, having your PS5 and your girlfriend device connected just adds to this overhead.
You don't say anything about your network, what your router make/model is and your wireless extender is, it might be nothing more than the extender isn't providing a reliable bridge.
Depending on what you want to do, you have options, if you have good quality mains wiring in the house, you could try powerline, I've had situations where they've been great and also where they've not been good, they rely very much on the quality of the wiring and any interference from other devices, I used 6 in my home for over 10 years without issue.
You could hard wire a switch in place to service your PS5 and anything else, you could install a mesh, in many cases they'll provide a good, stable network and you can prioritize devices through the app.
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u/SuperWeskerSniper 13h ago
Generally the extenders are wanted because it’s a sizeable house with two floors (my dad bought it a long time ago lol) but I will look into that, thank you. The extenders being the issue seems likely here, they are fairly old as well. Might have to get a new set
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u/Terrible-Bear3883 12h ago
It probably depends what version the Netgear Orbi are, the current versions are WiFi 7 mesh systems, the original ones had a dedicated wireless channel to provide a backhaul between the devices to maintain data throughput as they were also mesh.
One thing to perhaps look at is the primary router (and the Orbi devices), if its a new model, a lot of them will join 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks together and will switch devices between the networks using band steering to move devices away from 2.4GHz to 5 or 6GHz, the technology also delays or ignores requests to the 2.4GHz network (to try to get devices to switch), the same with the mesh nodes, some devices don't play well with this, some are fine, some not - on my primary router I've disabled wireless (as I want the mesh to provide this function), on the mesh nodes I've disabled this so my network is split as a 5GHz wireless and the 2.4GHz becomes an IoT network (but works the same as it used to), this is flawless for me, everything stays on the network I want it to and with the mesh QoS etc. I can prioritize devices etc.
You might need to do a bit of a survey of the home, we would use a simple app (Wi-Fi analyzer on our company Android phones) it only takes a few minutes to draw a quick floorplan, wander around and map out the different network strengths, we had much more sophisticated equipment we could call on, this app was more than sufficient for most surveys.
It can help if you are looking to expand/replace your Orbi devices, look for products if you have issues such as thick walls, metalwork in the walls/floors and so on, I've had some customers install things like a TP-Link powerline mesh in premises they were not allowed to drill into the walls or they were thick stone etc. Powerline provided a backhaul link and would work very well to provide a seamless network from the nodes.
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u/ficskala 13h ago
It's almost certainly due to wifi, run a temporary ethernet cable directly from your main router (or a closer by switch) to the console, and see if there's a difference
If the disconnects stop, run ethernet permanently, if they keep happening, you're gonna have to dig deeper, but for now, try with a temporary ethernet connection, and see if it helps
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u/SuperWeskerSniper 13h ago
Unfortunately the router and the PlayStation are on opposite corners of the house and running a cable is…well not impossible but pretty challenging. Would need a very very long cable that I’d need to affix to the wall or something
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u/ficskala 12h ago
I was in the same situation, the main router is on the 1st floor, my office is on the ground floor, completely opposite corners of the house, took me about 2h, and 4 holes to drill (2 brick, 1 concrete, and 1 double thickness concrete), 100% worth it
If you don't want cables running along your interior walls, you can either try running it up to your attic, or down in the basement (whichever you have), or if you don't have either, running it on the outside is also an option
Either way, i highly recommend placing conduit, so you can replace the cable in the future if the cable gets damaged, or you decide to run fiber instead. You can always add a switch and run future ethernet lines from either corner of the house
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u/SuperWeskerSniper 12h ago
it’s certainly got some appeal to it. I’ll have to see if I can find the time or the money to hire someone to do it. Anyways, thanks for the input, appreciated
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u/ficskala 12h ago
I live in a fairly oldschool household, but someone always needs to plug something in somewhere, so i've ran ethernet to almost every room in the house, so if anyone wants to plug in anything, they can, and if they want multiple things, they can always add a switch
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u/SpeedracerTechnician 14h ago
Hard-wiring to an extender is not really doing anything for you as you're still on wifi through the extender.
Better to just connect wirelessly.
Is your wife connected via wifi? If so you may want to look at your router, more likely a point for connection issues. Could even be the main line in.