Some of you may remember my super boring post about my terrible wifi.

The connection continued to have intermittent problems.

Doing troubleshooting, I was able to determine the issue was strictly local--connecting to the local router. I wrote a batch file that 'ping'd the local router and logged the results in a text file. I used task scheduler to run this batch every five minutes for a few days. The results were confusing; ping times were all over the place; connection uptime was only about 50% or less.

So just the other night I found out about this program that will scan wifi networks and give you basically all the information there is to know: WifiInfoView

So using that tool and perusing the information, it became clear that my router was set on the default channel, 1, along with almost all my neighbors. So there was tons of interference.

I was able to log in to the local router (thanks, admin/password default...) and change the channel to the least-used (in my case, 8).

Viola! Now I have seemingly flawless wifi.

I never had to deal with this type of problem before because 1) this is the first time I've ever lived in a crowded area and 2) I always used wired connections before.

TL;DR: If you're having wifi problems, try changing the channel on the router.

Yup, very common issue. In a past life, I was a technician for an ISP that used high-powered directional wifi radios (we're talking 5-6 mile range under ideal conditions). They were actual bog-standard wifi, same as the stuff you use at home, so they could see all the regular wifi networks - and had to deal with interference from them. I spent a LOT of time finding the optimal channels for those towers, sometimes only to do it again days later because something changed.

Thanks for this post, I am definitely going to check that. One of my Xbox's ethernet port stopped working and I have to use WiFi. This could help me out a lot.

No, dude, I was saying viola, not viola!

there's an android app called "Wifi analyzer" shows you the strength and channel of every network around you.

In a past life, I was a technician for an ISP that used high-powered directional wifi radios

I knew he looked a little transparent at the LAN...no wonder my grenades always went right through him.

Back to the topic--I never really thought of that--all the Wi-Fi networks around me, I should've considered the possible interference. We actually quit our previous ISP because the service was always going in and out...I wonder if that was unnecessary.

Regardless, I'll try it on my new router and see if it helps me upstairs--the guy at the counter guaranteed it would cover up to 4 bedrooms.

But it's "voila". "Voilà" if I'd want to go full nazi.

A few tips:

It can be hard to know for sure if you've improved performance from just picking random channels. Use an app like the one marmot mentioned to see what's near you. Personally, I use Wifi Analyzer for Android. Try moving around the house and checking each room. Usually the scene looks different depending on where you stand. You should be most concerned with how things look near the router itself, though.

In the US, with 2.4GHz networks, there are 11 channels. You'll want 3 channels of separation because there is some overlap between them. So for example, if there's a strong signal on channel 1 near you and you're trying to get away from that, don't use channel 2 or 3. Go at least 4 or higher. The app I linked will try to tell you which channels actually have the least traffic, which is especially useful in crowded urban areas. It's hard for the human brain to identify a clear channel when there's 30 networks visible.

We never used 5GHz at the old job so my knowledge of those channels is lacking. Same principles, though.