Narrowing down on issues with new router
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I used to have a Netgear router, and since I was paying my ISP for it, I decided to return it and buy my own TP-Link router.
Upon installing the new router, I'm having 2 issues that I didn't have before:
- Webpages take longer to load. I tried changing DNS, restarting modem & router, different computers and devices. There's a 5 second delay on everything I load.
- Zoom has started reporting "Unstable Connection" and my audio cuts off every 10-15 seconds.
I read online that disabling SIP ALG could help solve the Zoom problem, but I tried that and nothing has improved. If I install the older Netgear router back the problem dissappears, so clearly the problem is introduced when installing the TP Link router.
Any help would be appreciated, since I use Zoom for work, I will be left with no choice but to return the router and purchase another brand if I can't solve this issue. Thanks!
EDIT: Solved it!
Before I explain what the problem and solution was, let me explain why it was so hard for me to find the problem:
- All my other devices were working 100% OK. Streaming TVs, printers, devices, etc.
- The only noticeable symptom was that outgoing audio for ZOOM froze every 10-15 seconds which made meetings unbearably tough. Internet was overall slower, but I was only able to see actual packet loss on one of the MANY devices I had connected to the router.
On to the solution: the problem was that I had a TP-Link Smart Easy Switch connected to the network and the IP for the switch was never an issue because the default IP for the other brand router was different than the switch. When I upgraded the router to a TP Link, the default IP became/generated a conflict. This caused the hardly noticeable effect of creating a small amount of packet loss that was just enough to disrupt Zoom meetings, but everything else seemed to pretty much work ok. So I took one of my computers offline, connected it to the switch, then assigned a manual IP to my computer and accesed the switch admin page to change the default IP to something different than the router. I then reconnected the switch back to the network and it actually poppep up for the first time in the router list of connected clients. I then ran PingPlotter and am happy to report that the packet loss is gone.
Back to work!
