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I'm trying to diagnose an intermittent problem with the guest network at the office. There are three Asus APs sharing the same AP name and password, but periodically one of them crashes. If my laptop or phone roams over to it, I still have a WiFi connection but no Internet access. I'm pretty sure I've narrowed down the offending unit simply by resetting it and seeing if the problem goes away, but it would help if I could force the laptop or phone to roam to a specific unit.

Is there a method or app in Windows 10, or Android, that makes this practical? I can see the channels using WiFi Analyzer, but I can't figure out how to force a transfer.

This could be hard to do. Since you already suspect the unit in question, I'd do this: Set up a unique SSID that only exists on that AP, set up for Public Internet access.

Then set your testing device to use that network and see if it drops.

Vhalidictes wrote:

This could be hard to do. Since you already suspect the unit in question, I'd do this: Set up a unique SSID that only exists on that AP, set up for Public Internet access.

Then set your testing device to use that network and see if it drops.

Nice idea, but I should have mentioned that I don't have access to the AP administration, and the local IT guy is buried in other tasks. So I'm trying to diagnose this by isolating the suspect unit. Forcing a device to choose a particular AP channel can't be that hard, I'm just not sure what setting or app would do the trick.

ludi wrote:

Vhalidictes wrote:

This could be hard to do. Since you already suspect the unit in question, I'd do this: Set up a unique SSID that only exists on that AP, set up for Public Internet access.

Then set your testing device to use that network and see if it drops.

Nice idea, but I should have mentioned that I don't have access to the AP administration, and the local IT guy is buried in other tasks. So I'm trying to diagnose this by isolating the suspect unit. Forcing a device to choose a particular AP channel can't be that hard, I'm just not sure what setting or app would do the trick.

"Seems". Forcing a device to stick with an AP is actually very hard unless you have either 1) specialized wireless driver for your OS of choice, or 2) enterprise AP hardware.

Since you appear to have troubleshot this as best you can, your best option is to prod IT to proactively replace or disable the AP.

Just found a thread elsewhere with a similar problem, and some suggestions/cautions. InSSIDer is no longer viable because the developer has gone full commercial with prices to match, but some of the other possibilities look doable.

Since forcing a device to roam to a specific unit is very hard to do, consider trying a different approach.

My suggestion is to consider some sort of network testing equipment like Ixia's Ixchariot to test the wireless AP performance.