[Q] WiFi Reception Issues, Nook HD+, Regardless of ROM

[d9ct]

Hey guys. I have made a couple posts about WiFi issues in other threads, such as the CM12 development thread, and I started a thread about my WiFi issues in CM12, but haven’t gotten feedback. Anyways, I now know my WiFi woes go beyond just CM12, so I’m not trying to duplicate threads, but rather I’m making a general thread about this issue as I am desperate for help.

Some time back I started having very poor WiFi reception on my Nook HD+. What I attributed it to at the time was installing CM12. However, it’s possible this started happening prior to CM12 when I was on SlimKat or CM11. I have done some more extensive testing on this and would like to give you guys the run-down and see if you have any ideas.

For the first 1+ year I had this tablet, I ran CM10.2.1 without any issues at all, and although the WiFi reception was a little bit weaker than my other devices, it was never weak enough to cause any issues. At some point this past fall I tried out some KitKat builds, CM11 and SlimKat. I had trouble with the stability of those builds, and I can’t recall if my WiFi reception was good or bad on those, but I think it was okay. Because of the stability issues on those ROMs, when CM12 came out I hopped on that to see if it was going to be better.

My WiFi reception on CM12 was very poor. Only sometimes could I stream my video and even then it would cut off after a few minutes. I figured CM12 was the issue so I rolled back to the ‘Jamus28’ ‘Unofficial CM10.2.1 Stable w/ TabletUI + ArchiDroid Optimizations’, since CM10.2.1 ran great for me for so long. I figured that although I wouldn't be running the latest and greatest (Lollipop), at least I would have my stability and more importantly, my WiFi stability back. Apparently I was mistaken.

I am still having WiFi reception issues regardless of which ROM I am on. I have tested at areas around my apartment on the different ROMs. I’ve done most of the testing on the CM10.2.1. The WiFi signal fluctuates greatly, mostly at very very low speeds (using Speedtest app, 1-2 Mbps in some areas, but never gets above 8 or so even right next to the router). On my other devices I get 20-30 Mbps. I've had similar troubles now at my church on their network, which used to have a great connection for me, so I don't feel it's specific to my network.

I have done a ‘hard factory reset’ of my router and set it up from scratch. Last night, I couldn't even start a stream up at all. All of my ROM flashes are always clean flashes. Part of what I’m wondering is – is there something that could be sticking in my tablet files, despite doing clean flashes, that could be causing these issues? Is there any universal command or file between the different ROMs I can check on? Do I need to try a complete and utter wipe of my Internal Storage and start from scratch? Or do you think I just have a device that the hardware has gone bad on? The main apps I stream and thus have had trouble with are WatchESPN and Netflix. I've also had the troubles with YouTube.

Any input, suggestions, or tips are greatly appreciated! Please let me know if I can provide any other information to help troubleshoot. Thanks in advance.

 

[wellersl]

Have you installed a WiFi Analyzer? It can be very helpful for finding both sweet spots and trouble spots.

WiFi can be a fickle beast. Interference can come from a myriad of sources. If you're sure its your HD+, it could even come down to how you hold it. Do you have big,wet hands?

 

[d9ct]

Have you installed a WiFi Analyzer? It can be very helpful for finding both sweet spots and trouble spots.

WiFi can be a fickle beast. Interference can come from a myriad of sources. If you're sure its your HD+, it could even come down to how you hold it. Do you have big,wet hands?

Yes, thank you for the tip. I've used that app and optimized my network channels for my location, but it hasn't helped out the ole Nook.

And joking aside, I've tried all sorts of locations and positions!

 

[kokercey]

Yes, thank you for the tip. I've used that app and optimized my network channels for my location, but it hasn't helped out the ole Nook.

And joking aside, I've tried all sorts of locations and positions!

As you have found out it is hard to differentiate between hardware and software but my "guess" would be software. My thinking is signal strength is not your problem as distance makes very little difference. My suggestion, and I'm sure you have thought of this, would be to go back to stock (Leapinlar has great info and instructions) and move forward into CM 10.1 or CM 10.2. You can still download the official stable from the CM site. If going back to completely stock does not help then moving on to a different tablet is the option.

 

[wellersl]

Kokercey just reminded me that I once had WiFi problems with my old tablet (BNTV250). I used WiFi Fixer from the Play Store. I recall that it solved the problem, though I don't recall what exactly the problem was. Anyway, it can't hurt. And it's a lot less traumatic than restoring to stock and starting over. But that would be my next step.

 

[d9ct]

Thank you both for the suggestions. I will check out that WiFi fixer when I am at home.

I had thought about and read about the benefits of going back to stock. My curiosity is, does full-wiping and going to stock OS and then back to CM have an advantage over a complete Internal Storage wipe and then going back to CM?

 

[leapinlar]

Thank you both for the suggestions. I will check out that WiFi fixer when I am at home.

I had thought about and read about the benefits of going back to stock. My curiosity is, does full-wiping and going to stock OS and then back to CM have an advantage over a complete Internal Storage wipe and then going back to CM?

One of the advantages of going back to stock and wiping instead of just wiping is going to stock also resets your bootdata and recovery partitions and wiping does not. That may not make a difference in your issues, but who knows.

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app

 

[d9ct]

Thanks guys. I tried the WiFi Fixer, but it seems more geared towards issues connecting to a network. I seem to connect okay.

One clue I forgot to mention is that when I use the speedtest app, my upload speeds are faster than my download speeds 98% of the time. Usually 5-7 Mbps compared with the dismal download speeds of ~1-3 Mbps.
@leapinlar, to go back to stock, I would reference item #6 in your CWM Root Tools thread? Flash the older recovery, full wipe, and flash the stock zip? Which stock zip do you recommend for just the reason of cleaning things up? Can I use the rooted zips? Whichever one makes it easiest to get back to a newer recovery and CM is obviously what I'd be looking for.

Thank you all for the help.

 

[leapinlar]

Thanks guys. I tried the WiFi Fixer, but it seems more geared towards issues connecting to a network. I seem to connect okay.

One clue I forgot to mention is that when I use the speedtest app, my upload speeds are faster than my download speeds 98% of the time. Usually 5-7 Mbps compared with the dismal download speeds of ~1-3 Mbps.
@leapinlar, to go back to stock, I would reference item #6 in your CWM Root Tools thread? Flash the older recovery, full wipe, and flash the stock zip? Which stock zip do you recommend for just the reason of cleaning things up? Can I use the rooted zips? Whichever one makes it easiest to get back to a newer recovery and CM is obviously what I'd be looking for.

Thank you all for the help.

Yes, item 6. The newest plain stock, not the rooted one. And just use the older bootable CWM SD to put the cm10s on. Don't bother with putting recovery on internal until you are ready to put the newer one on for CM11, if you get that far.

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app

 

[d9ct]

Yes, item 6. The newest plain stock, not the rooted one. And just use the older bootable CWM SD to put the cm10s on. Don't bother with putting recovery on internal until you are ready to put the newer one on for CM11, if you get that far.

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app

Thanks. Can you please check and/or correct my steps below?

- Make older bootable CWM card
- Boot to the bootable card recovery
- Wipe everything except external storage (will this wipe the current internal TWRP? Everything?)
- Flash stock zip
- Boot to stock?
- Reboot to the SD card CWM
- Factory reset wipe
- Flash CM10.x as normal

Will the device automatically boot to the SD card CWM and not my internal TWRP?

 

[leapinlar]

Thanks. Can you please check and/or correct my steps below?

- Make older bootable CWM card
- Boot to the bootable card recovery
- Wipe everything except external storage (will this wipe the current internal TWRP? Everything?)
- Flash stock zip
- Boot to stock?
- Reboot to the SD card CWM
- Factory reset wipe
- Flash CM10.x as normal

Will the device automatically boot to the SD card CWM and not my internal TWRP?

The CWM SD should boot on its own after inserting it. If it does not then you need to remake it. After booting to the CWM SD do a factory reset with the CWM. That is the only wiping necessary. It does not remove the internal TWRP. The next step does that as part of flashing the stock zip. And yes boot to stock and set it up to test your wifi issues before moving on to CM.

Sent from my SCH-i705 using XDA Premium HD app

 

[d9ct]

The CWM SD should boot on its own after inserting it. If it does not then you need to remake it. After booting to the CWM SD do a factory reset with the CWM. That is the only wiping necessary. It does not remove the internal TWRP. The next step does that as part of flashing the stock zip. And yes boot to stock and set it up to test your wifi issues before moving on to CM.

Sent from my SCH-i705 using XDA Premium HD app

Okay. I did the following:

- Made older bootable CWM card
- Booted to the bootable card CWM recovery
- Performed factory reset in CWM
- Flashed stock unrooted 2.2.0 zip
- Booted to stock and activated into the tablet through my WiFi network.

I've done a little testing running in the stock OS. The WiFi speeds seem to be almost identical to before this exercise (via the Speedtest app). The one difference I am noticing is in the usage of the WatchESPN app. Beforehand, a stream would start at a decent resolution (or not start at all) and then the stream would cut out and not reconnect, presumably when the signal fluctuated too low. Now on the stock OS, it is staying connected, but at a very very low resolution. So it almost seems to be more stable but a really low quality.

I don't remember exactly what the speeds used to be in the tablet's good days, because I never had a reason to study any speed tests. All I know is that anywhere around my apartment it would stream all of these apps at HD resolution with no problems. This is a bummer. Maybe it's just hardware gone bad.

 

[leapinlar]

Thanks. Can you please check and/or correct my steps below?

- Make older bootable CWM card
- Boot to the bootable card recovery
- Wipe everything except external storage (will this wipe the current internal TWRP? Everything?)
- Flash stock zip
- Boot to stock?
- Reboot to the SD card CWM
- Factory reset wipe
- Flash CM10.x as normal

Will the device automatically boot to the SD card CWM and not my internal TWRP?

It sounds more like a router change if it is the same on both ROMs. Have you done anything different lately. Even connecting some other new device to the router. Other users have had issues when two devices interfere with each other. Like two HD+s on the same router.

Sent from my SCH-i705 using XDA Premium HD app

 

[d9ct]

It sounds more like a router change if it is the same on both ROMs. Have you done anything different lately. Even connecting some other new device to the router. Other users have had issues when two devices interfere with each other. Like two HD+s on the same router.

Sent from my SCH-i705 using XDA Premium HD app

Interesting. I did get a new HP computer in December, which come to think of it could be when these problems started, but I can't say for sure. It runs on the same 2.4 GHz band that the Nook HD+ runs on. Some time before that my wife and I both changed phones. We almost always have the phones on my 5 GHz band. Other than that I have a laptop and Kindle Fire that we've had for a very long time.

Last weekend I did a factory reset of the router due to issues I was having with my phone connecting on Lollipop. I set it back up the same as it was prior. After doing the reset my phone was able to connect again. As noted above, it runs on the 5 GHz. Prior to last weekend the router had been the same for quite some time, certainly well before the tablet WiFi issue.

Perhaps try some testing with the new laptop shut down?

Edit: I did get a new router some time back, but I feel it was surely before these troubles, maybe last summer or so. Let's say it wasn't... how would I test this?

 

[leapinlar]

Interesting. I did get a new HP computer in December, which come to think of it could be when these problems started, but I can't say for sure. It runs on the same 2.4 GHz band that the Nook HD+ runs on. Some time before that my wife and I both changed phones. We almost always have the phones on my 5 GHz band. Other than that I have a laptop and Kindle Fire that we've had for a very long time.

Last weekend I did a factory reset of the router due to issues I was having with my phone connecting on Lollipop. I set it back up the same as it was prior. After doing the reset my phone was able to connect again. As noted above, it runs on the 5 GHz. Prior to last weekend the router had been the same for quite some time, certainly well before the tablet WiFi issue.

Perhaps try some testing with the new laptop shut down?

Edit: I did get a new router some time back, but I feel it was surely before these troubles, maybe last summer or so. Let's say it wasn't... how would I test this?

To eliminate potential interference from other devices temporarily disconnect everything from the router except the Nook. Bluetooth could also be an issue. It runs on the 2.4GHz band too. As I remember the earlier issue was when an HD+ and an HD both connected the HD+ (and other devices) slowed way down. There was a software problem with the HD which got fixed eventually.

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app

 

[Deleted member 2092952]

Your quickest path is to simply turn them all off and test only with what's needed for the nook, which is wifi router/modem and the nook. Unplug the house phones, turn off computers, forget the wifi on the mobiles/tablets, airplane mode, or similar. etc.

One other thing I will point out is that testing max wifi speed over internet isn't the best idea as the results are less guaranteed.. The internet is out of your hands and devices are recognized and delt with on that end as well. Using btsync (http://www.getsync.com/ , https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bittorrent.sync&hl=en) and transferring locally a large file (few hunderd MBs or so) from your dektop/laptop to the device though the wifi router/modem (the desktop/laptop should be wired to the router for troubleshooting here) will be able to max out the wifi connection and it shows the transfer speed. Unfortunately, simple ways such es file explorer or similar cannot do so. Transferring small files though btsync also shouldn't max it out as that creates a bottleneck.

The best these things can do is just over 4MBps.

 

[d9ct]

Okay guys, thank you for the help, I do appreciate it. I did a little more testing. I turned off everything I have and just ran the Nook on the modem and router. Unfortunately I didn't notice an improvement in the speeds doing my poor-mans tests (speedtest app and streaming). Similar to yesterday I am able to stream a decent-to-good quality in the immediate proximity of the router, but a low quality further away. I then whipped up the WiFi Analyzer again and decided to try a different channel, but I am still having similar results.

I have not tried the Sync app yet, but thank you for that suggestion, perhaps I will give it a try. Is 4 MBps really all these devices can do? That sure seems low, but I guess I don't know what is typical for a tablet...

I would like to point out clearly that I am in an apartment building. There are a LOT of surrounding networks and devices. However, I've been here for more than two years now and it wasn't an issue prior to these last however many months. Is it possible I have a new neighbor with some new device(s) that are causing additional interference, perhaps?

A side question I have, and maybe it should go in a new thread, is that I've tried a few times to bluetooth tether the Nook to my phone and use the phone's WiFi for the Nook, but when I get to the step of actually selecting to use the phone for WiFi, the Nook wouldn't allow me to select/activate. I would just press and nothing would happen. This was happening on CM; I haven't tried today as I still have it on the Stock OS. Any idea why that wouldn't work on CM?

 

[Deleted member 2092952]

but a low quality further away. I then whipped up the WiFi Analyzer again and decided to try a different channel, but I am still having similar results.

With wifi analyzer if your wifi is -30 your in great shape with signal strength which one less bar may occur in the -50 range. And if it shows your wifi is on a good channel then its not going to do much for you.

Is 4 MBps really all these devices can do? That sure seems low, but I guess I don't know what is typical for a tablet...

It is for the nooks. 65 link speed is absolute max.

Is it possible I have a new neighbor with some new device(s) that are causing additional interference, perhaps?

I assume you have a mimo router (multiple antennas) and dual band as well in which case the nooks can't take advantage of that and interference could be more of an issue. But, if you have a cheap end HP laptop it may have the same basic wifi as the nooks - if you look at the connection info in the nook wifi settings and the connection info on the HP networking and they both show 65 link speed that would help confirm the nook is indeed having a problem with something (ignoring any possible differences between internal antenna design). (It looks like HP laptops MSRP above $1k get various combinations of dual band, dual antenna, ac wifi.)

 

[d9ct]

With wifi analyzer if your wifi is -30 your in great shape with signal strength which one less bar may occur in the -50 range. And if it shows your wifi is on a good channel then its not going to do much for you.



It is for the nooks. 65 link speed is absolute max.



I assume you have a mimo router (multiple antennas) and dual band as well in which case the nooks can't take advantage of that and interference could be more of an issue. But, if you have a cheap end HP laptop it may have the same basic wifi as the nooks - if you look at the connection info in the nook wifi settings and the connection info on the HP networking and they both show 65 link speed that would help confirm the nook is indeed having a problem with something (ignoring any possible differences between internal antenna design). (It looks like HP laptops MSRP above $1k get various combinations of dual band, dual antenna, ac wifi.)

I will check this evening what type of signal strength it was. It is a low end HP laptop and it only runs the 2.4 GHz band so it sounds like what you're talking about. I can check on the device info this evening. However, I had it off yesterday when testing around again and I don't think I noticed much of a difference. Last night I watched a little more streaming and it's possible it was slightly better quality for longer periods, but I can't say for sure.

 

[d9ct]

With wifi analyzer if your wifi is -30 your in great shape with signal strength which one less bar may occur in the -50 range. And if it shows your wifi is on a good channel then its not going to do much for you.



It is for the nooks. 65 link speed is absolute max.



I assume you have a mimo router (multiple antennas) and dual band as well in which case the nooks can't take advantage of that and interference could be more of an issue. But, if you have a cheap end HP laptop it may have the same basic wifi as the nooks - if you look at the connection info in the nook wifi settings and the connection info on the HP networking and they both show 65 link speed that would help confirm the nook is indeed having a problem with something (ignoring any possible differences between internal antenna design). (It looks like HP laptops MSRP above $1k get various combinations of dual band, dual antenna, ac wifi.)

Hey guys, I had some very busy weeks of work and then a vacation and then some more busyness. I haven't had any improvement in the tablet WiFi in that time. I did some testing today using the BT Sync software. Let me note a few more things first:

- I checked the Link Speed on my Nook HD+ and it mostly read 54 or 72 mbps. I never saw it at 65. I actually saw it go down to 1 a few times but then back to 54 or 72.
- I checked the Link Speed on my HP Laptop and it read 72 mbps, again I never saw 65; it stays steady at 72.
I've done some more using of the tablet around the HP laptop and it doesn't seem to have an effect that I can tell whether the HP is off or on.
FYI I have a Netgear N300 router.

My WiFi analyzer app shows that with my Nook literally within one foot of my router my signal strength gets no stronger than -50. Nowhere near -30 ever. In my further rooms from the router it drops to -60 to -70.

I did the testing using BT Sync you recommended. I connected my other laptop directly to the router and disabled it's wireless as well as the wireless on the HP laptop. I installed Sync on both the laptop and my Nook. I transferred (actually it's still attempting to transfer) a folder with several files, the main one being around 200 megs which it has been chugging away on. With all the other devices off this transfer topped out around 350 KB/s. More consistently it has been around 200 - 250 KB/s.

Edit: Let me know if you think I'm using the Sync app incorrectly to have that slow of speeds. However it doesn't seem far fetched to me based on my performance I have at times (browsing, app installs, etc.)

I hope this provides some more clues for you guys, I'll add a post if I think of anything else. I appreciate all continuing suggestions. Thank you for your help thus far.