Wireles Slow With Multiple Cameras

[MtnXfreeride]

I'm going to keep some of the info brief so I'm not flooding this post with possibly useless info. Just ask and I can supply.

I have an issue where with 7 wireless IP cameras (4 Dlink 480p, 3 foscam 720p) there is a huge amount of 2.4ghz network issues. I have a high end router (tested with nighthawk R7000, netgear nighthawk 7500, and Linksys WRT1900AC). I have a home server running blue iris so the cameras are always transferring data in network.

If I connect to my 2.4ghz network I can only transfer in network at 2-3 megabits and a internet speed test will show similar numbers. If I connect via 5.0ghz band I can get full speeds in network and max out my 30/5 internet connection. So I have a few devices in my home that cannot connect to a 5.0ghz network so that is where this is an issue for me (Chromecast for example is useless now). Also there are devices such as my phone which I want on the 2.4ghz band because the range is better while I am outside my home. The 2.4ghz band devices say they are connected at 300 megabits with excellent signal.

Ive tried unplugging a few cameras and speeds seem to increase, but I cannot identify a single camera/brand that causes more issue than others. I have also tried switching the 3 foscams to powerline adapters but the issue is still there although not as bad as 3 megabits. Its tricky because there is a delay it seems when going one at a time plugging them back in and testing speed. But each one seems to drop the speeds a bit.

In blue iris, the foscams are terribly unreliable and cutting out constantly if that helps.

Has anyone had similar experiences and found a solution? Can I buy a second router and run the cameras off that??

 

[bp2008]

It actually sounds like your wireless is working better than most people's.

In blue iris, the foscams are terribly unreliable and cutting out constantly if that helps.

Very common. Usually helps to have them wired instead of wireless.

Has anyone had similar experiences and found a solution? Can I buy a second router and run the cameras off that??

I wire everything I can. The Blue Iris server in particular needs to be wired since it sends and receives more data than any other device. It seems like you aren't one to make the mistake of connecting the BI server with a wireless adapter but you never know.

Cameras with a poorer signal may reduce speeds most, because they may have to retransmit more often.

Yes, you can buy a second router. Any wireless access point will do; you don't need routing functions and you'd have to turn off the routing functions anyway if you use a router for this.
www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=wifi+access+point+802.11n&rh=i:aps,k:wifi+access+point+802.11n

With the access point, you can create a new wireless network. Just make sure you have all 2.4ghz wireless networks set to use non-overlapping channels and do not let any router automatically choose the WiFi channel. Choose only channel 1, 6, or 11. That makes the best use of the available frequencies, and allows 3 separate networks on 2.4 ghz that won't really interfere with each other. Not everyone follows this rule, so if your neighbor for example has a router on channels 2, 3, 4, or 5, that would create interference for channels 1 and 6. You can use various mobile apps to easily identify which channels are in use nearby. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

Also, do not buy wireless repeaters that just extend the wireless signal. Those actually cut speed in half and you don't want that. You will need to connect the access point with a network cable to your router or to a switch.

Anyway if you think it would help you can even buy two access points and run two networks dedicated just to the cameras and still have the third network for other devices. You should not try to go beyond 3 networks though, since there are only those 3 channels that do not overlap.

 

[ruppmeister]

I think you probably have one of two things going on right now. First I would look to see what your computer resources look like with all cameras connected. You said you are using Blue Iris and I am wondering if your system is having a hard time keeping up with the number of cams connected. If your system is not being taxed with all 7 cameras connected, I would start with having only one camera connected and seeing if things are good once more. Perhaps you can start with the camera that is the farthest away from the wifi access point. You could be seeing a saturation of the wifi network, or you could be seeing a problem with frames getting dropped due to distance from the access point.

 

[MtnXfreeride]

Thanks for all the good feedback - Networking is my tech weakness - things just don't work like they should for me.

1. My server running BI is wired via gigabit to router.
2. Resources on server will all cameras - it has 16GB of DDR3 and a i3 processor with CPU usage running ~10-20%. The sever also runs plex server and streams 20GB movies/TV throughout the house. When streaming in home its light on CPU as it is not transcoding. Its also a backup hub for my other computers.
3. My only neighbor with wifi is on channel 1... mine is on channel 11.. so I do have 6 open for a secondary camera only network.

If the cameras are on their own 2.4ghz channel 6 network - would there be any interference on the channel 11 network from the cameras? (can devices do that?)

I'm going to try the repeater and if it works return the powerline adapters. I bought 2 sets of the 500megabit TPLink powerline adapters and just going up a floor drops the speed to 8-12 megabits/sec and the latency is inconsistent and high.

 

[ruppmeister]

There shouldn't be any interference if your wifi is as you have said. Look at the picture to get a better idea of why we only use the specified three channels. There isn't any overlap when using channel 1, 6, or 11.

 

[bp2008]

I'm going to try the repeater and if it works return the powerline adapters. I bought 2 sets of the 500megabit TPLink powerline adapters and just going up a floor drops the speed to 8-12 megabits/sec and the latency is inconsistent and high.

Yeah powerline has just as many problems as WiFi in some homes. In others it works great. It all depends on the wiring path between one powerline node and the next, and the other things you have plugged in to electrical outlets...

That sounds like a plan; just make sure you aren't repeating your existing wireless network. You need this to be a separate wireless network, fed by ethernet cable.

Excellent picture there ruppmeister. Really shows how the channels overlap. The good WiFi analyzer apps on mobile phones show their data in a similar way so you can easily visualize which channels have interference without doing any silly math.

 

[alastairstevenson]

There isn't any overlap when using channel 1, 6, or 11

True, but that's why you sometimes get interference in dense environments like flats where every access point uses much the same channels.

 

[bp2008]

Honestly it would be nice if access points didn't use so much of the spectrum. But I guess they need to use that much to accomplish higher speeds.

 

[MtnXfreeride]

Ok so that TP link access point came.

I have it in AP mode where it is hard wired to my Linksys router, which is also hard wired to blue iris server. TPLink on channel 6, Linksys on Channel 11. The TP-Link AP actually dropped wifi connectivity 2x during the process of attaching the cameras to it one by one and needed to be restarted so that was strange. Once all cameras were attached it hasnt dropped signal yet.

Now with all the cameras on the TP-Link AP I re-ran speed test on my laptop with excellent signal on 2.4 and 5ghz bands. Here are the results:

2.4ghz:
4.9 megabits down
0.97 megabits up

5.0Ghz:
20.65 Down
3.18 up

Right after the test finished on the 5.0ghz band, all my devices diconnected from the 5.0ghz network and the SSID disappeared from my list of choices. It reappeared a minute later but my laptop refused to connect to it. I switched back to 2.4ghz logged into the router and restarted it. Everything is back again. Speed test shows same results as posted above.

Any other ideas? What is up with this interference? Can the cameras be doing this?

*EDIT* 5.0ghz band disappeared again - 2nd time in 10 minutes. This never happened before the TP-Link AP was added in. It recovered on its own.

*EDIT* The TP-Link just went down again 5 minutes since my last edit. None of the cameras are accessible until I restart it now.

*EDIT* 10 minutes later the Tp-link goes down again.

*Edit* Upgraded firmware on TP-Link, disconnected 10 minutes later. and again 15 minutes later.

 

[bp2008]

Hmm, that is odd, and unfortunate.

Here are some things to try.

• Make sure neither the router or new AP is using more than 20 MHz of bandwidth on the 2.4 GHz radio. This setting may be called Channel Width or Channel bonding or something similar, and common values are 5 MHz, 10, 20, 40, or "Auto 20/40". The higher the channel width, the higher the theoretical transfer speed speed, but only if all the freqencies involved are clear of interference. Hopefully you can find this setting on both the router and the new AP, but if not, you could at least try setting the 2.4ghz radios to use channels 1 and 11 as they are further apart than 6 and 11.
• If your router or your new AP has a live bandwidth meter, I suggest you watch that and see if the usage looks normal. If there is more usage than you can account for, it could be the cause of slowdown.
• Get a wifi analyzer app to help you figure out which channels have the least usage in your area. Apps can be found for practically any platform, linux, windows, android, iOS.

 

[ruppmeister]

Is your new access point running a completely different network (i.e. Different SSID and IP Address scheme) from your Linksys network? Based on you saying you have the new hardware in AP mode I will assume same network and the Linksys does all your gateway and DHCP handling. Perhaps setting up the new AP as a second network to avoid any collision of networks might be in order here? Never had to do this personally so just trying to throw out ideas to help.

 

[ruppmeister]

Haha, I thought about what I said a bit more and... don't listen to me. The difficulty for setting up a second LAN is not hard (theoretically), but the implementation getting packets to go over the two networks is much harder. The second router is going to act as a firewall between the first and second network, just like the first router does to your internet traffic. This seems far too complicated than it needs to be.

Long and short of it, don't listen to me

 

[alastairstevenson]

It sounds like your TP Link AP is crashing periodically. Any errors pre-crash showing in its logs? They presumably don't survive a restart so you can't check post-event.
Presumably you don't have a DHCP server active on it, and have allocated it a fixed IP address that does not clash with the DHCP pool offered by your Linksys router, or anything else.
May be worth Googling the TP Link model and firmware to see if others are having similar problems.
If you really are getting a decent signal and no channel clashes, your 2.4GHz download speed should be much better.
As @bp2008 suggests - a WiFi analyser can be a useful tool to check signal strengths, channel clashes etc. For an Android phone, I've found 'WiFi Analyser from FarProc' works well.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en_GB

 

[MtnXfreeride]

Havent seen anything in the logs as I cannot get in once it crashes which it does with no warning. DHCP is off on the AP and I have a DHCP reservation for the AP on the linksys router.

For testing, I unplugged all the 720p Foscam cameras and 1 Dlink 480p camera, leaving 3 480p Dlink cameras attached overnight.. woke up and the TP-Link AP had crashed again.

I will set the TPLink to 20mhz only instead of the forced 40mhz i had it on. Linksys doesnt support 40mhz only and is in auto mode (which should mean the cisco/linksys also on channel 6 should be in 20mhz mode since Linksys forces neighbor friendly.

**The linksys is still randomly dropping out and coming back a minute later

I got a new wifi traffic analyzer and see there are some other networks on similar channels, but they are homes I cannot or can barely even see through trees and I have 1.7 acres. Would this amount of traffic on the channels cause problems? Securitas is the AP, Derp1 is my Linksys 2.4ghz network, HURR is the linksys guest network.

 

[MtnXfreeride]

OK for *fun* this morning I went around and unplugged all cameras and also set the TP-link AP to 20mhz only. My internets are fast again on the 2.4ghz network, full 30/5 connection I am paying for I am getting now. (same speed Ive been getting on the 5.0ghz band all this time).

I'm going to let it stay like this while I am at work and that TP-Link AP better not crash since it has 0 devices attached for the next 9 hours. If it hasnt crashed when I am back from work, Ill plug one camera back in and see how it does overnight. Then keep adding them one by one. What a hassle

 

[alastairstevenson]

Depending on where you were when you took the screenshot

Securitas is the AP

is a fairly low signal strength.

 

[LittleBrother]

Frankly, I think you have too many high-bandwidth devices on 2.4 ghz and are likely to continue to struggle. If you can't get them on 5 ghz (and most wifi cameras don't support that--and in any case its range is abominable, even though it tolerates far more bandwidth if you're in range), you need to wire up what you can.

 

[bp2008]

Those neighbors' networks below -90 signal strength are nothing I would worry about. They are barely more than background noise.

I still recommend you put the TP-Link on channel 1 and keep the Linksys on channel 11. It might make no difference, but it should not hurt. The cameras won't need reconfigured to find it or anything.

Also, force the linksys router to use 20 MHz channel width. I know I read that model of router doesn't support 40 MHz, but I found someone post that setting it to 20 MHz anyway fixed his speed problems.

 

[TechBill]

I run wireless cams myself as well too using high end cameras (Sharx Cameras)

But to run all my cams on wireless efficiently, this what I did.

Lower resolution and bitrate on all my cams, I am running them at 720p at 15fps.
I have a separate wireless access point for my cams only, I have a second wireless access point for other devices such as laptop, media player, Blueray, SmartTV etc. I run the other devices on the 5Mhz and the cameras on 2.4Mhz bands.

I am able to successfully view all my cams from my Amazon Firestick using a TinyCam apps directly from any TV in the house that have Firestick plugged into it.

Soon I will be switching to Hikvisioin cams and wire them all in to a NAS drive but continue to use the wireless access point to Amazon firestick for streaming from the cameras. (If I can get it to work )

Bill

 

[ruppmeister]

@TechBill - It might be helpful for OP if you elaborate some on your setup here. When you say you use two access points for your network, are you #1) using the same SSID for both wireless networks and #2) are they setup on different wireless channels as the OP is doing?