Ah, frequency congestion. Gotta love it. As most readers will know, wireless devices of all sorts use the 2.4ghz band. This includes most wireless keyboards and mice. Bluetooth devices may be less susceptible than proprietary radios.
Has your wireless keyboard or mouse (possibly those specific to Logitech) been affected by WiFi traffic? Try copying a large file on your WiFi network, see how they behave correctly. If the option to change channels on your keyboard or mouse exists, you can try it, but I've had no luck.
Changing your WiFi channel, if you have access to the access point configuration, is an option to possibly mitigate it, but I've had no luck with that either.
The *only* thing that did work, at least in my case, was putting the keyboard and/or mouse receiver directly line of sight to the mouse, and as close as possible to it. I mean, within inches if possible, which you can easily do using a hub or USB extension cable.Lowering the 802.11n threshold to 145Mbs, non-MIMO, does NOT seem to be effective.
Changing the batteries in the keyboard and/or mouse does NOT seem to be effective.
The *only* thing that did work, at least in my case, was putting the keyboard and/or mouse receiver directly line of sight to the mouse, and as close as possible to it. I mean, within inches if possible, which you can easily do using a hub or USB extension cable.
I will write more as I'm able. In my older post, wherever it went, others had said there were also affected by WiFi interference. I only buy Logitech wireless mice, so I have no idea if this is specific to their brand or not. I strongly suspect it is common to all wireless devices in the 2.4ghz band.
This is happening to me with a Microsoft Sidewinder X8. My mouse was weird movements sometimes and my internet goes slow. I switched to corded mouse and the web is fast again. BUT, I don't want a corded mouse!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree that it is my experience that WiFi,Bluetooth (which also uses 2.4 ghz) and wireless peripherals like keyboards and mice don't always work together. I first found this out with a Mac Mini. I had no problems with WiFi until I bought a Wireless Apple Bluetooth Mouse. Once I enabled the Bluetooth I began to experience WiFi issues and Mouse cursor tracking problems. The conflicts are basically because of the poor quality of one piece of hardware or more. Although their is specifications for rejection of interference. I think we all know sometimes that does not always make it into production models.Their is no doubt that wireless anything has more problems then wired. Its great to cut those wires but not if the end result is making your computer experience worse. I know some Mac users who actually had better luck using third party wireless products then Apple's Bluetooth ones. Simply because they could turn off Bluetooth and instantly their WiFi improved. Not sure what the answer is to that? But whatever solves the problems.
ReplyDeleteI have a Galaxy tab 2.7 with 4G, but use wifi when at home. When I try to use my blue tooth external keyboard I lose the wifi signal after minutes to seconds of use. Are there any wired mini keyboards available?
ReplyDeleteYes, the 2.4ghz band is full of bad behaving devices that may not play well together. I have a Logitech mouse (M510) and a Logitech Keyboard (K360). Whenever they are connected my Router Netgear 1000 v3 goes from 54 mbps to 36 Mbps. Yes, the router is a N series 1x2 router capable of 150 mbps but I have so many neighbors running 2.4 ghz routers that I not only have to put my router downstairs but also reduce bandwidth to stabilize throughput. If I enable N mode I still end up at 58 mbps. what's even more a issue is I have a printer connected through routers LAN so the router ends up close to the wireless mouse and keyboard. If you can put about 20 ft between a router and 2.4 ghz device you can better handle the interference. Bluetooth is also 2.4ghz but because some think its security is better that helps. It does not. Interference comes from waves of the same general frequency hitting each other and canceling out the other. Its not about security, its about frequency. My advice to those wanting a lot of wireless devices and WiFi is to buy devices that run in 2.4ghz for mice and keyboards. Then use the 5Ghz band routers for WiFi connections. Obviously the trouble there is having all your devices that can run on 5Ghz. The other is to relocate your router as far as you can from other 2.4ghz devices. Without causing signal loss or range issues. Don't add a repeater or booster of any kind because your just adding to the congestion.
ReplyDeleteif you have to do that may as well use wired keyboard and mouse
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of a wireless keyboard-mouse combo. But now I'm pretty much sure what I want.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Great information you have stated in your blog. It is really good to learn this thing because it can interrupt us to our activities when we do not know how to configure this kind of interference that we might experience when we use both wireless devices in our PC.
ReplyDeleteUp until the other day my net connection was getting 100 down and standard 20 up (200 Mb line) Mouse runs on 2.4 frequency and they are 6 inches apart. So after racking my brain, putting my bandwidth at 40 Mhz only,I don't care about the neighbors, I'm on a completely empty channel according to wi-fi analyzer. with no difference, I realize the mouse is running at the same frequency, duh! So I unplug the receiver on the mouse and get 105 down and 20 up. The newer PS4 runs on 5Ghz and if i get a 5Ghz mouse I would probably get interference with that, so that's off the table. Any suggestions?
ReplyDelete