M5 throughput problems/questions
I've got 3 M5 Deco units spread out through the house. It's been in place for a little over a year now. My 5 Ghz WiFi coverage is good with a minimum of 1 out of 3 signal in most places in the house. However the actual throughput of the network is inconsistent. In the best areas in the house, I get decent throughput speed and it is mostly reliable. But in other areas of the house, the network throughput is frequently non-existent - even if I have the full signal strength there. When that happens on an iOS device, it will just silently fail. When it happens on an Android device, it will show something like connection refused.
I've used the WiFi Analyzer Android app before and I've found that there's a lot of 5Ghz WiFi active in my neighborhood. So I wanted to change the channel to a less crowded area but I've learned that the Deco philosophy is that it will choose the best itself. Periodically through the past year, I've upgraded my Deco in the hopes that the new firmware will be smart enough to do better or that it will finally let me manually choose but neither is the case even with the latest version. So I've been living with lots of drop outs, holding the tablet up in the air a certain way, etc.. But with a year now of this nonsense, it's time to get this resolved.
I updated the Decos again today and am running the latest app. I again tried the "optimize" button in the Deco app this morning. It said it needed to change something but nothing seemed to have changed with the 5Ghz network and I still have the same issues.
Today I installed the NetSpot Android app and it gave me a bit more info. Here's a screenshot showing a snapshot from this morning. I'll follow the screenshot with my questions. My 5Ghz network is represented by the gold line in each graph.
The first thing to notice is that Deco chose the only place in the spectrum where there are a bunch of other networks. Channels 50 through 64 are empty and I didn't bother including a screenshot showing the other two panes of channels because they are empty except for some very low strength xfinity stuff in the 148 to 162 range. So if Deco really is going to choose the best channel, one would think it could do better than this. Or at least allow an advanced setting to block out certain channels.
It's also interesting that this snapshot period was done with the Android tablet 3 feet from a Deco and the strength was only as good as -40. I'd expect better for being so close. Although the tablet's network bars were at full strength.
The thing that confuses me the most is that purple line. I figured I had determined my problem when I saw that. Clearly that network represented by the purple line is causing interference since it is the same channel and has the same strength. I looked up the MAC address manufacturer and it showed TP-Link. I used the Deco app to shut off the 5Ghz signal and my gold line did indeed go away and the purple line also dropped off. But then the purple line came back. And it continued the up and down. I unplugged the Deco and the purple line went away completely. So clearly that line that seemed like interference with my network is actually from within my own device - an unstable ghost network.
Next I went to another Deco in my house and repeated the same test. I found the same result at this one too. In fact, if you look in the graph again, the faint olive and the dark pink lines are the other two Deco units' ghost networks. And you can see they go up and down together at least much of the time. So it turns out all 3 Deco units in my house are blasting out my network and a ghost network at the same time. I can control the main network but that ghost network only stops when I unplug the Deco.
I have never used the Guest network and double checked again this morning to confirm that it is disabled. I tried enabling it and I did see another network come up with the "guest" name. The ghost network shows as SSID Hidden so it definitely is not the guest network.
The first obvious question is what is going on with that ghost signal? Why is it there, what is it doing, and most importantly, is that causing a sort of self-interference? Is my Deco setup somehow unique or are others epxeriencing the same ghost signal and if so, are there throughput problems for others too?
The next obvious question, assuming that the ghost signal is either normal or at least not the source of my problem, is how can I get the Deco to use an empty part of the 5Ghz spectrum instead of the very crowded part that it insists on using? Shouldn't the Deco software either move to the empty part on its own or at least allow me to push it there?
And then the general question is maybe none of the above has anything to do with my problem so if anyone has further advice for what else to check or to try, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!
In case it matters, I've got the Deco system set to Access Point only. I'm still using my original router as the router for the house because I need capability that is provided by dd-wrt. The dd-wrt router has the WiFi entirely shut off and therefore doesn't show up in the graph at all. The Deco network is the first mesh setup I've tried - previously, I just had the dd-wrt router serving the lower level and an older router serving as an upper level access point but we had dead spots and our devices weren't smart enough to switch from one to the other when moving around the house. However, when we manually switched our device to the closest access point, we never had these kinds of full-signal-strength-but-zero-throughput issues. And when I was using those older routers, I was able to switch the channels manually to avoid the cluttered area that the Deco insists on using which is why I'm focusing on that as the source of my problem with the Deco.