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Sorry in advance for the long post. I've been working this issue for the past 4 months and I am at my wits end. I work for a small business that moved into a new office in December. When we moved in, it was a new build in the suite, so we had a company come in and set up our cabling, VOIP system, and network.
4 months ago our internet started going out. It would drop and we would have to power cycle the wireless router. But power cycling would only works sometimes, and we could go all day having to power cycle it every 30 minutes. So I had our network guy come in and change the router. We replaced the router with one of the same model, and it started having the same issue a few days later. So I called our network guy again and we tried a different model. This router would randomly change its IP address and that would take our internet and phones offline. We replaced this router with another that did the same thing. Finally we have our current router but it continues to drop internet signal and will sometimes give employees a message that they cannot join this network. Power cycling will normally correct the issue, but we have to do this multiple times a day.
My network guy and I were baffled on what would cause 5 different routers to fail. We decided we would need to look into other factors that could be impacting our network. During this process, I had the modem replaced and the internet service provider out to examine the setup and they could not determine an issue on their side of things.
I did discover the back-up battery pack for the cabinet was putting out low voltage (109 volts comparted to the regular 120). I replaced the back-up battery pack and the issue went away but only for a week.
I’ve also had an electrician out to examine our wiring and to ground the cabinet and make sure everything else was wired correctly.
But despite all of this, my internet keeps dropping constantly.
No one else in the building is having any issues. The problem is contained to our office.
I am completely out of ideas of what could be causing this issue. I don’t even know what questions to ask to try to continue troubleshooting. Has any heard of anything like this or does anyone has an idea of where to look for the cause?
Have you tried unplugging the router from the outgoing ISP cable thus creating an isolated NAT? Any stability issues within the local network? Also, try opening up wireshark and seeing whats going on in the network - maybe you will discover an overlap of activity and the problem occuring. – Enigma – 2014-07-11T20:05:11.497
My network guy did that and he wasn't able to find a problem. – jmclaughlin6569 – 2014-07-11T20:06:33.807
If you chain two routers at the entry point, do they both fail or just the outermost one? – Enigma – 2014-07-11T20:07:33.917
We had a wireless router and then and extender that was set up in the conference room. When the first router started failing, it was replaced with the one that was the extender from the conference room. That one ended up failing as well. Does that answer your question Enigma? – jmclaughlin6569 – 2014-07-11T20:10:22.687
Mostly. It sounds like it is a problem of where your network is connecting to. Is it connecting directly to the ISP or is it connecting through a gateway either somewhere in the building? – Enigma – 2014-07-11T20:15:46.957
Do you have any wired machines on the router/network? – MrWhite – 2014-07-11T20:22:36.900
1w3d: Yes there are wired machines on the network and they go down as well. Enigma: I've downloaded Wireshark and am capturing packets. But this is all new to me and I have no clue what to look for. Is there a specific error I should be looking for in these? – jmclaughlin6569 – 2014-07-11T20:40:16.040
I would be suspicious of some sort of RFI or PLI, perhaps a malfunctioning motor nearby, or even a LED lightbulb or a fluorescent on a dimmer. – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-07-11T20:44:06.280
And, of course, there's always the possibility that someone is sabotaging you, either someone from the outside (via the net somehow) or a disgruntled employee. – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-07-11T20:45:41.007
RFI is radio frequency interference, correct? I'm not sure what a PLI is. Do you know how I would even check for these? – jmclaughlin6569 – 2014-07-11T20:47:10.403
I can't say that someone isn't doing this from the outside somehow. But I'm not sure why anyone would want to. We're a small business and I know everyone who currently and has ever worked here. I can't imagine any of them being able to cause this. – jmclaughlin6569 – 2014-07-11T20:50:41.870
PLI - Power Line Interference. – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-07-11T22:16:45.377
Think back as to whether any sort of maintenance activity was performed in the area around the time that this problem started -- replace an HVAC fan, change out a fluorescent fixture, install LED lighting. Even a new refrigerator in the break room could be the culprit. – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-07-13T02:13:04.650
(And don't forget that a single bad cable in your rack could be at fault.) – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-07-13T02:43:40.047