Forum Discussion
Thermal Issues With Home Internet Gateway/Router as a Cause of Dropped/Slow Internet or Wi-Fi Connection
I am a Newbie here and a fairly new T-Mobile Home Internet customer. But my background is electrical engineering and I've been around a while. Like many community members I have experienced frustrating degradation of my internet connectivity after a period of operation, which is temporarily fixed by cycling the Gateway's power (otherwise known as a soft reset, not the paperclip nuclear option). The standard fix per T-Mobile Tech Support is to just perform that reset, which isn't a "fix" at all. Though many others have noted the thermal connection, I feel it's time we get organized on this.
Without going into great detail and after surfing a number of forum threads and through my own direct experience, I have become convinced that the primary cause of the various complaints expressed by posters is heat buildup in the Gateway's enclosure and a subsequent compromise in performance in one or several of the Gateways numerous devices. There could be multiple devices affected, manifesting in different failure modes, but one primary cause - heat.
What I'm asking community members to do is to test this theory by keeping a record of the time from device reset (powering down, then back up) to failure or degradation of either internet or wi-fi connectivity or any other failure mode, and then to apply some means of enhanced airflow through the Gateway's enclosure, whether it be placing a muffin fan on top of the Gateway (blowing up, not down) or simply sitting the Gateway atop an A/C vent in your home with constant airflow and recording any difference in the time between reset and the failure. Repeating this sequence several times and then posting your results here, on this thread, will be most helpful.
If, as I strongly suspect will be the case, a correlation between enhanced airflow and increased "up-time" is documented in one place (here) by multiple forum members, we will have a powerful tool to get T-Mobile's management to fix this problem. Please don't post here unless you have performed the requested action; there are many other threads to use.
What do you say?
Been there. Done that. Here's my public record of troubleshooting over the last few months.
https://community.t-mobile.com/tv-home-internet-7/weekly-reboot-35365I summarized my findings for easy reference here.
https://community.t-mobile.com/tv-home-internet-7/home-internet-overheating-36560And I will add that my current uptime is only 3 days and 16 hours. The last reboot I documented in my Weekly Reboot thread was probably around a week ago during a period of heavy bidirectional transfer. But then I had to reboot a few days ago when I wasn't even on my computer.
Rebooting is annoying but I'd rather do that once a week as opposed to the issues I was having with my previous provider where a reboot did nothing. I'm in more control now. I'm only using T-Mobile for home internet and my phones have been on Verizon for years. If Verizon starts offering a similar service in my area I will be quick to try it out and switch if it's more stable.
Having that same issue my connectivity started to become an issue and I've only had it for 2 months. Was very good WiFi strength to now currently weak WiFi strength. I've restarted the home gateway but I've never gotten back to very good WiFi strength even though I have coverage. Lately even my cell phone (iPhone 11 pro max) has been experiencing terrible cellular coverage having only one bar.
The existing design of the 5g gateway alows for a 1/4 inch area at the bottom for incoming airflow. Besides adding the fan at the top, I also added 1/4 inch high self adhesive feet to the underside of the unit to double the intake flow area. Unfortunately, my gateway always runs slow so that it is unusable. T-mobile told me that they are working on my nearby tower (for three months now).
I used my hand held temperature and pointed it to my gateway. It read "HIGH" I bought this fan and set it to medium. Its very silent. I found this on Reddit.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G059G86?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details
When I point my Temperature back at the Tower it now says 90 degrees. You can plug the USB right in to the back of the router tower or put a little brick on the end.
It really makes a difference. This fan is a very high quality/build device. I'm very happy with it.
Smoky wrote:
Smoky wrote:
I have now not had a loss of internet since June 10th. The fan solved the problem so far.
The 5G cylinder sits in the exact same place as it did during the many May failures. It is just raised about 1 inch by sitting it on top of the USB fan. I made no other changes to the setup, not even rotating the 5g cylinder.
I went from seemingly random failures to none.
I recently added t-mobile's YouTube TV offer and no problems. I was concerned it wouldn't show local channels with the home internet jumping around, but the location is determined by your cellphone. Very pleased so far.
I now have gone over two months without a reset since adding the fan below the unit. Plus my usage has gone up as we now have YouTube TV in use regularly. I get 80 to 120 down and 20 to 50 uploads. One thing I forgot to report is that I have the WiFi turned off. I go out the Ethernet port to an eero mesh system to supply WiFi coverage in my house.
It is obvious to me there is a heat problem at a minimum in the design of the 5g cylinder.
I have now passed FOUR months with the fan running, as I discussed months ago, and have not had a single internet dropping out failure. It is obvious to me there is a heat problem with the 5g cylinder.
I've done the reset reboot and everything then found what works , I have my gray tmobile 5 g on its side with a holmes small air purifier on high blowing air into the top side of it , and it has worked for over a month like this , it has fixed the thermal issue . Engineers should have put fans into the modem!
I’m having to update my post here as the edit function doesn’t seem to exist.
IMPORTANT: To reboot, use the power switch; power off for 30 seconds and then power back up using the switch. If you attempt a reset by unplugging the AC adapter a portion of the modem will remain powered by the battery. I'm not sure you can get an effective reset by using that method.
I had same problem was constantly losing internet during May. It went down 8 times in 30 days, always came back right back on after power down and back on with button on back of 5G tower. Listened to advice on forum and ordered USB fan to set 5G tower on, that was on June 10th, it is now July 11th and haven't had a single day with needing to do the power down. Definitely a overheating problem in their 5G tower design.
Great, Smoky, this is exactly the kind of documentation we need. Now if you could do one more thing: Take the fan away, set the tower up like it was when it was losing connection and see how long it runs without needing a reset. It would also be helpful if you can verify that the extra airflow is the solo thing that changed, that is, you didn’t move the gateway to a new spot, etc.
We had the same problem. To me the root cause was the advice given to us subscribers to place the unit near window.
I moved the unit place with clear view via double glass sliding patio door that is 18 feet away. The modem is sitting on a top of 5 feet high cabinet.
No problems anymore; both up and down load speeds are excellent.
No outage over the last 2 months. Bar count is absolutely stable.
Our roof (including the porch) is metal. No problems either (no Faraday cage effect).
