I guess the honeymoon is over!

[bbmountain]

I have had my iPad for over two months now and it has been a marriage made in heaven! BUT...for the past three days my wi-fi signal has been very poor. One of the things that I have really enjoyed is watching movies that are stored on my computer via Air Video. It has worked great. But now my average wi-fi signal strength is one bar! That definitely does not support streaming videos. I haven't made any changes settings-wise. I should mention that when I first awaken the iPad the signal strength is three bars for maybe ten minutes...then it drops and mostly stays at one bar. I'm very frustrated and don't know what to do to fix this! Any suggestions? It seems very strange to just have this happen out of the blue.

 

[gentlefury]

Sounds like the wifi unless you installed something weird.

 

[bbmountain]

I'm afraid I'm not following you..."installed something weird"? What type of app would affect wi-fi signals? And no changes were made to the wi-fi router so I guess I'm wondering why the signal has changed so drastically.

 

[Hawon]

Maybe your next door installed a new router and have same channel as you are?

 

[wrecklass]

Got an Android phone? If so use WiFi analyzer and check if someone has a router on your channel. Or just set your router to a different channel and see if it helps.

 

[gentlefury]

Do you have a password lock on your wifi? Could be neighbors using your Internet.

 

[Bluesjam]

I don't think its your ipad.

 

[iceman]

Have you installed the latest version of iOS? I think it has some updates for wifi. I haven't installed it myself because I don't want to lose jailbreak.

 

[bbmountain]

I don't have a password lock on my wi-fi, but I live down in a dip so my range is very limited. Also, there's no light activity on the router when it's not doing something that I have initiated on the iPad. I have the latest OS 3.2.2.
I did a hard reset this morning but that didn't help. I think I'm going to try to borrow a router from a friend and see if that's any different...but then again I don't understand why something that worked well for 2 months is now not working so well.

 

[gentlefury]

I don't have a password lock on my wi-fi, but I live down in a dip so my range is very limited. Also, there's no light activity on the router when it's not doing something that I have initiated on the iPad. I have the latest OS 3.2.2.
I did a hard reset this morning but that didn't help. I think I'm going to try to borrow a router from a friend and see if that's any different...but then again I don't understand why something that worked well for 2 months is now not working so well.

Always set a password. It doesn't matter what you think the range is, you could easily have someone leeching you!

 

[Digikid]

Agreed...could even be THIS fellow!!!

 

[ProPhotoGA]

One thing to remember is we have heavy solar activity going on. This will
often affect radio transmission and reception. I have experienced the same
thing. I am a ham radio operator and have seen an increase in activity on
the HF bands and when this happens it is almost always due to solar activity.

 

[bbmountain]

Interesting about solar activity! Are you now experiencing the wide and quickly changing wi-fi strength issues like I am? And if it is solar activity induced, how long do those periods where it affects radio signals generally last?

 

[DM51]

heavy solar activity going on

My guess is it's a teenager in the neighborhood who has locked on to the OP's unrotected wifi hub and is sucking the bandwidth out of it with all his facebook activity, lol.

 

[tosh.jc]

Mine often gives me only one little bar of Wi-Fi signal, even when I'm five feet away from the router, whereas before it kept a pretty strong signal. It does vary, but for instance, most of last night I had only one bar. It doesn't affect my browsing speed, it just looks pathetic.