Top Reasons Your WiFi Signal Is Weak
A weak WiFi signal is almost always one of these eight causes. Diagnose yours in 10 minutes.
1. Distance
WiFi loses ~6 dB for every doubling of distance. Past 12 m, most routers drop to 2.4 GHz only.
2. Obstacles
Concrete walls, metal doors, mirrors, aquariums — all attenuate signal heavily. A single concrete wall can halve throughput.
3. Interference
Microwaves, baby monitors, Bluetooth speakers and old cordless phones share 2.4 GHz airspace.
4. Neighbour congestion
In an apartment you may see 25+ SSIDs. Channels fight for airtime. Use a WiFi analyzer to find a clear slot.
5. Router placement
In a cupboard? On the floor? Behind the TV? All bad. Put it high and in the open.
6. Router hardware age
A WiFi 4 router from 2013 will struggle with 2026's multi-device load.
7. Bad antenna orientation
External antennas should be perpendicular, not parallel. For two antennas: one vertical, one horizontal.
8. Broken radio
If signal dropped suddenly overnight and a reboot doesn't help, the router's 5 GHz radio may have failed. Happens more than you'd expect.
How to diagnose
Run our WiFi speed test at three distances from the router. If throughput collapses at 5 m, you have an obstacle or interference problem. If it's fine near the router and collapses with distance, the router is the bottleneck.
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