How to troubleshoot a wireless system

[RookThis]

I just took over support for a wireless network. There are 4 APs located in basement level of a building, one for each conference room in that level. The APs seem to come and go when scanning them using a wireless scanner. I see that one AP is using channel 1, two are using channel 6, and the 4th is using channel 11. When I connected to the network I started a continuous ping to a server across the network and it work for about 20 minutes, then I started to see where I would get a ping, then a time-out, this continued for approximately 30 to 45 seconds, then it seemed to correct itself. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for to determine the root cause of the problem. This appears to be a recurring thing.

Thanks,

 

[IPKONFIG]

You should probably read up on Wireless first. Understand how the different channels work. You don't want to overlap the same channels if you can help it. You need to understand that wireless can work differently through different surfaces. Placement is a big deal in wireless networks. If they are in conference rooms, I would think you can turn down the signal to just cover the conf. rooms and it would probably perform better for those specific rooms. Now if your in the conf. room in question and using that AP and you have loss then you a probably running into congestion issues. There are so many different things that can impact how well your wireless network performs. I'd suggest a study up first. Once you have a good understanding then you'll probably find your problem. I've run into a lot of networks that have had little to no thought put into them when they were built. And 9 out of 10 times, this is the main reason for poor performance.

"I can picture a world without war. A world without hate. A world without fear. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."
- Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts