How to do site survey for Wi-Fi network with many devices

[Avaddon]

My friend has a wifi network with an x-box, a wii and two nintendo portables. She's also got Macbook and a network printer. She's got a wifi repeater as well.

She claims that she didn't have any issues for months with everything working together, and suddenly everything stopped disconnecting.

I haven't been over there yet - wanted to figure out the best way to diagnose the thing. I asked her to send me the stats on the booster and the modem, etc:

The booster is Netgear serial #2ac2195506b95 The modem is Cisco Linksys e1500 #10910c12129103 We have a sprint router thru centurylink and they said it is working fine 660 series

 

[ilidion]

Do a site survey and determine if there are "new" wirelss APs in the area. NetSpot is a handy tool. A new device may bew causing a conflict. This could be in a nearby building. If you find conflicts, change her wireless channel to an unused one and set it so it does not auto select.

Good luck.

 

[dazey]

To me, Kismac is the best tool as it allows you to do passive monitoring as well (which will show up all wifi units, including ones with hidden Bssids and the clients). It has gone a bit flaky under mountain lion however and passive doesn't work with some of the latest laptops (but you can still use USB sticks etc for passive mode)

 

[switon]

Wi-Fi Diagnostics...

Hi Avaddon,

If you wish to use tools already available under ML, then you might consider the Wi-Fi Diagnositcs app. You access this app by holding down the option key while clicking on the wireless icon in the menu bar. At the very bottom of the menu list is "Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics...".

This application opens and if you then do a Command-T to open the "Network Tools" you will find that "Wi-Fi Scan" will list all wireless sources it finds, including those that are hidden (they don't list a name). Also, the "Bonjour Services" shows all zeroconf devices, which can be quite handy. And lastly, the "Capture Network Traffic" on the main Wi-Fi Diagnostics screen is a rudimentary form of "wireshark", that is, a packet capture tool. If you wish to view all packets on the networks, then "wireshark", available free from MacPorts and Fink, is a nice tool for capturing packets that satisfy certain filters and then displaying those packets that satisfy another filter.

Switon