thanks Dave

well the whole setup has been fine for years, so why would my laptop suddenly lose Wi-Fi strength?? could it be a virus or malware?

also does it affect the open reach engineer whether he decides to charge me £220 or not?? surely his salary is unaffected so does he give a stuff?

I doubt it affects the Open Reach engineer at all as it won't be his decision, that was yours to have them come out. The engineer will record his visit and what was carried out, Open Reach will then either decide to charge you or not, but it won't be the engineer. If the fault is with Open Reach's equipment then you won't be charged anything.

Personally as your internet connection works and your phone works then I would cancel the visit as others have said, as I very much doubt there equipment is at fault.

and resign myself to a life without home Wi-Fi?

Have you tried using a different laptop, see if a friend or relative has got one you could try...if their laptop works, that would point to the problem been your laptop.

As others have said , if you are having trouble with your laptop connecting to your router unless you are in the same room, then the problem is either with your laptop, router or interference, none of these are Openreach's problem and to persist with a visit will almost certainly end up with you paying for a visit, a false call out if you like.
You need to do some simple self help things first , like changing the channel your router transmits on, you state why would performance deteriorate , we'll perhaps a neighbour has a new router on the same channel as yours...the inSSider program others have quoted tells you who is transmitting on what channel, so you can adjust your router for conflicts, picking the cleanest channel where you are,
perhaps your router is starting to fail, you could reboot it, or get onto your ISP and see if they will send you a new one, this may re- contract you,
perhaps your laptop is not as healthy as it once was.
Regardless of what the problem is, no one is saying you cannot use WiFi just that your ISP cannot guarantee a particular performance in your own environment because your wifi environment is unique to you

other devices (including a netbook) seem to work fine (albeit in the test socket).

so how can a laptop suddenly lose it's Wi-Fi capability suddenly?

thanks for the help but we've been round in circles with such things for 6 week with BT support.

I know everything indicates OpenReach can't help, but why would a laptop suddenly lose Wi-Fi unless in same room as router??

also the inSSider program costs $19.99

Have you cancelled Open Reach? if not then you are very likely to get charged £220.00, if your netbook & phone are working that would indicate there is a problem with your laptop. I don't know what the problem will be with your laptop, perhaps it's just general wear and tear and something has failed inside, but if you end up needing a new laptop, probably best to put that £220 towards it rather then give it to Open reach.

$19.99 that might track the fault would be money well spent compared to £220 which seems would not.

The number of bars in the taskbar of a laptop has nothing to do with the Internet connection or the ISP. It's purely about the strength of the Wi-Fi signal between the router and laptop, and (unless there's a hardware fault) is down to your home environment.

The ISP know this, which is why they may be perceived as doing nothing to fix things beyond their control, or aiming for the lowest common denominator (suggesting you use an Ethernet cable in the same room as the router)

so do BT basically not give a stuff about their customers?

It could be interference. Possibly from the laptop's power lead. Have you tried it on battery as I suggested before?

Or it could be the wi-fi card has failed dure to wear and tear (possibly overheating). I had that and on my Acer laptop it was a simple plug out / plug in new card replacement fix.

As others have said this is nowt to do with BT so stop blamestorming an innocent party and start thinking rationally.

You keep asking these questions despite being told the answers.
You've been given advice which you seem to have ignored.
You seem to be saying that wifi is ok apart from on your laptop.
It's starting to feel like a wind up.
Good luck.

thanks guys, this is not a wind up. I genuinely have a BT guy coming round tomorrow so will report back. the reason being is I don't want to live in the test socket forever, or have to be confined to the room where the master socket (not where I want it) and router is!!

it's strange now though. in the room where the router is it instantly kicks into life and is fine. 2 rooms away, dead as a dodo!

the replacement wifi card may be an option I don't know.

Windows update possibly updated your wifi drivers - there are so many reasons why your laptop is playing up and no-one of them relate to what looks like a perfectly working phoneline.

Your are going to be charged a lot of money for that bt visit.

Someone has suggested this, but to give it a bit more detail: if you have an Android phone or tablet, get Wifi Analyser (there's probably something similar available for iphone/pads) You should see a graph like this:

http://cdn4.pcadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/...Analyzer_1.jpg

Try it in different places around the house and see if there are other networks that are on the same channel (or overlapping) with your own network. If so, change your router to the clearest channel.

If there are no networks clashing with yours, and the signal seems OK on the phone/tablet, then it suggests something is wrong with your laptop.

Openreach can't help you with this and will charge for the visit.

i appreciate that. can't seem to find an app like that on the iPhone. surely there is one out there?

Although the current version of iiSSIDer (v4) costs a copy if the older program (v3.1.2.1) can still be obtained from the web.
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html

However, be very careful in down-loading - do NOT press any of the Download buttons or you get additional software. Instead click on the "Windows" option and wait - the program should then be offered to "Save or Run"

Brian

Thanks brian

inssider doesnt cost 19.99


BT will fix what THEY supply you are saying if you buy a car from Ford they have to come round and fix the roads that you use it on.

this problem has 2 causes BT ROUTER (CAR) which YOU have quoted seems to work FINE so this isnt the fault

or LAPTOP which seems to have a WIFI problem and as IF YOU HAVE A CAR it can get faulty SO CAN your laptop..... this IS probably a WIFI CARD or a BAD connection to the WIFI CARD aerial.
Neither are BT's fault they are yours.


did you just make power lead up ?


another person making things up.

If this is an internal wifi card in the laptop it most probably needs its aerials unplugging and cleaning with solvent cleaner. a computer shop should sort this

"inssider doesnt cost 19.99"

please show me where it doesn't

"a BAD connection to the WIFI CARD aerial."

where is the WIFI CARD aerial please?

BT did come out and thankfully didn't charge me as nothing much needed to be done.

My laptop now seems to work fine in certain rooms and not others, the living room in particular is next to none.

How can this be???

Look at my response in post #42 - an older version can be obtained which does the basic job.

Brian

A lot of different things can cause problems with wireless signal, however because you are only reporting problems with your laptop I would point the finger in the direction of your laptop and not at BT or the router. Have you dropped the laptop at all?

The wireless card is usually (dependant on model) under the laptop underneath a cover of some sort with two wires attached to it, one white and one black. Have you got any other laptops or phones to test with?

You are lucky that BTO didn't charge you, however the person who booked them is a bit silly as it is clear that it is not a problem with your phone line or termination as you've not stated problems with anything else? Plugging your router into the test socket will do nothing for your wireless, it may help with speed/connection issues on the internet side but nothing will change on your side of the router (wireless, cabled devices).

Do what everybody else has said;

- Get the old version of inSSIDer from here: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html

- Use it and scan the wireless, see what channels have the least congestion (access points showing up)

- Log in to your router and change the wireless channel to one of the less congested ones

- Make sure your router is positioned well (not on the floor or under a load of rubbish)

If this doesn't help then the wireless card in the laptop could well be faulty.

HTH

Oh he could still be charged. All the engineer will have done is recorded what has been done. So if the engineer has said there's no problem with the line and nothing has been done he could well be charged! But then again he's ignored you all.

Openreach don't charge end users. They charge the service providers. It will be the service provider who will charge the OP or not.

I had a similar experience to the OP when dealing with the offshore call centre recently.

My Infinity connection is normally rock solid but started to randomly drop about 3 weeks ago.

My smart tv, bluray player, sky box and BT YouView box are all connected by ethernet cables to my Home Hub 4 and they were all disconnecting. The blue light on my router was turning amber.

I knew that it was not a wireless problem but various people at the BT Indian call centre repeatedly insisted that I was at fault for using wireless!

One person was extremely rude and shouted down the phone that the problem was "entirely" my fault because "BT does not endorse using wifi"!!!

I pointed out to him that if that is the case then why does BT run television commercials for Infinity that feature people using their service via wireless laptops!

In the end I gave up with the call centre and tweeted @BTCare who very quickly resolved the connection problem and monitored my line for 5 days.

One of their staff just phoned me (from Northern Ireland?) to see if I was happy that the issue had been resolved. During our conversation he admitted that the offshore call centre staff routinely try to fob off customers with connection issues with the lie that it is a wifi problem.

If I get problems in the future I will raise them via Twitter because the staff at the dreaded offshore call centre are the absolute pits.
Last edited by Silver Tractor : 10-04-2014 at 14:53