Buffering: About 3 yrs ago I joined the herd that “cut the cord” and got rid of cable. At the time, had Dish, dropped from $120 to $55, and picked Hulu to watch. My issue is the...

killroy

About 3 yrs ago I joined the herd that “cut the cord” and got rid of cable. At the time, had Dish, dropped from $120 to $55, and picked Hulu to watch. My issue is the constant buffering (screen freezing). Have read up on the routers and the differences between them. Last one I tried gave me slight improvement, but still can be maddening. My house is moderate size (1260 sq ft) and the router is just down the hall. Any tips, tricks? Do signal boosters help! Is it my tv?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

killroy wrote:

About 3 yrs ago I joined the herd that “cut the cord” and got rid of cable. At the time, had Dish, dropped from $120 to $55, and picked Hulu to watch. My issue is the constant buffering (screen freezing). Have read up on the routers and the differences between them. Last one I tried gave me slight improvement, but still can be maddening. My house is moderate size (1260 sq ft) and the router is just down the hall. Any tips, tricks? Do signal boosters help! Is it my tv?

As a start, Google Ookla speed test, run it and report the results back to us (including download speed, ping, jitter and loss) and then we’ll have some data to help you diagnose the issue.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

The impression is that you use wireless on your router to connect to your TV ?
The worst thing any household can do is to use wireless for anything (I know that there are some things that you must use wireless for). My house has everything connected via 1GB cable and switches. Any laptops that need access (our ones anyway) we connect via a wired port. Over a 1GB cable nothing takes long to connect. In saying that since we have a fiber connection I do see 500MB wireless speeds the odd time I bother to check. Take the wireless away and so will your internet problems disappear.
Follow TriX's advice above to make a start anyway.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, that is frustrating. My TV runs mainly on Amazon Fire, which is wireless. Between the buffering and losing the signal completely, I have to revert to Tivo. The Fire works a bit better than Roku, but it's not good enough. I have a TP-Link Deco Mesh router I have to get working and see if that helps.

Don W-37 Loc: Bangkok, Thailand

Possible, but I doubt the problem is your router. Between your router and your ISP is a connection, which might cable, optical, local WiFi or possibly satellite if you live in the sticks. A good possibility is that backhaul connection doesn't have enough bandwidth (capacity) for steaming. Another possibility is if your TV is old or low cost, it may work or cable, but not work well om WiFi.
Good luck

alexol

That seems to be an overly broad indictment of wireless use, and is probably location dependent.

Just about everything in my house is wireless and without issue. Here, where I live, Cox may be a major PITA to deal with, and expensive, but their service is good, and we are typically seeing over 400GBS anywhere in the house. Around 500 on my desktop, which is not wireless.

Might be worth getting a signal analysing app for your phone, so you can see what sort of signal coverage (and strength) you have. They seem to range from super-complex with all sorts of tech details all the way down to simple red & green indicators, good or not good.

Niklon Loc: Athens, Ga

I don't know if a signal booster/extender will help with your situation but we live in a 110 year old house with plaster and lath throughout so there is a lot there to interfere with a wireless signal. Over the years we tried several different extenders before finding on that actually works really well. You can get one on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010S6SG3S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good luck!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Until you have good data, everything is a guess. Run the benchmarking Ap I suggested (Ookla) on both a wired connection and a WiFi connected device and report the numbers…

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

chrissybabe wrote:

The impression is that you use wireless on your ro... (show quote)

I use a wireless router throughout the house, Spectrum, have never had a problem.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Earnest Botello wrote:

I use a wireless router throughout the house, Spectrum, have never had a problem.

From what I've heard, a lot depends on what is receiving the signal. I bought a Bluetooth keyboard for my Mac, but it kept losing the signal, so I bought a wired kbd.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

jerryc41 wrote:

From what I've heard, a lot depends on what is receiving the signal. I bought a Bluetooth keyboard for my Mac, but it kept losing the signal, so I bought a wired kbd.

Jerry, I have only one wireless mouse on my laptop and it has worked without failure for years, my laptop is also wireless. We have a few pads 2 more laptops, 4 telephones, we have 5 people in the house and use wireless through-out the house
and it works great.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

I have a 42 inch Samsung that buffers itself. I can cast a video to it and the video on the cast device does not buffer but the TV does. I have 3 other Samsung's that do not internally buffer. I at first thought I was crazy and it was my casting device In the cast. So being a perfectionist I tested all TV's. Only the one mentioned above has the issue. I know it's odd but if you have another TV see if it has the same issue just to check if it is indeed the WiFi

BebuLamar

I prefer everything wired in my house but I do understand wiring isn't an easy job. It's an easy job when the house was built before the drywall went up but after that it's no easy task.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Drbobcameraguy wrote:

I have a 42 inch Samsung that buffers itself. I can cast a video to it and the video on the cast device does not buffer but the TV does. I have 3 other Samsung's that do not internally buffer. I at first thought I was crazy and it was my casting device In the cast. So being a perfectionist I tested all TV's. Only the one mentioned above has the issue. I know it's odd but if you have another TV see if it has the same issue just to check if it is indeed the WiFi

If the WiFi (and the source) is fast enough, no buffering is required. If the speed varies, buffering occurs, and if the speed is consistently too slow, buffering can’t fix the issue. It’s implemented to address intermittent/marginal/temporary bandwidth issues.

BBurns Loc: South Bay, California

What Trix is trying to convey is to determine your provider's speed & stability coming into your home.
This is your fundamental baseline.
No matter what wireless, router, booster, or anything else you use will make a difference if your ISP's service is bad.