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Using inSSIDer.
I am going to assume that you have downloaded and installed inSSIDer and are ready to run the program.
Depending on the version of the software you may see a different screen to that of which I have screenshots for at the moment, I will try and update according to any new versions shortly, but the information within should be the same.
So here is the first screen we should see:
The first thing you should look at is at the top, before scanning you will see the drop down menu with network adapters, for this you obviously need to select your wireless network adapter, then click the Start button. Once you have done that you should start to get something that looks a little like what I have posted.
First you see a list of surrounding networks with details of them, then under that you get 2 graphs, the line graph on the left shows historic data for your signal strength and the one on the right shows current strength for all selected networks.
If you do not wish to see all of the surrounding networks in the graphs you can untick them with the boxes in the list view.
List view.
Okay so now you have a load of information on the screen but you don't really know what it is or what you should do with it...
The columns:
1) MAC Address - This is the physical address of the router/access point, it is a unique address that identifies the device. This is of little importance to our diagnosis.
2) SSID - This is the name of the network broadcast by the device - this helps you identify your network.
3) Channel - This is the channel that you are using.
4) RSSI - Received Signal Strength Indication note that the Wikipedia article conflicts with the information within inSSIDer, don't worry about this. This column is signal strength, the lower the number the stronger the signal; -48 is stronger than -93. Signal strength ranges between around -30 and -100.
5) Security - This shows what security type is being used, WPA, WEP, WPA2 and so on.
6) Network Type - Does what it says on the tin, not an important factor here.
7) Speed - Shows what speed the device is showing - most will be set to Automatic speed but some may be forced to certain speeds.
8) First/Last Seen - Again, self explanatory, these signal when you first and last saw the network while scanning.
I have put 3 of the above in bold as these are the ones which we will concentrate on, these are: SSID, Channel and RSSI.
First you need to ensure you are looking at your network, so you will need to look at the SSID to find that, once you have located that then look at your Channel and compare it to what the surrounding networks are using, if there are a lot of networks on the same Channel as you then you might be better off changing your channel to a different one. As previously mentioned try stick to 1, 6, and 11 as these have no overlap with each other. You can usually change these settings very easily in your router configuration page - if you get stuck then someone will help you providing you state the make and model of your device.
Also you will want to look at the RSSI column - if you have connection problems in certain areas of your house try running the scan and checking the RSSI in various areas and see how your signal drops or changes in different places.
If you are asking for help with wireless problems after this, please include details of your testing so that whoever is helping you can see that you have tried the basics and can then try and figure out what might be the problem based on your results. |
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2-12-2019 04:26:12
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