I live in a small apartment and the washing machine is right next to the router. Every time I turn it on, the internet gets really bad or drops completely. Is this normal or is my router broken?
Washing machines do cause electromagnetic interference, especially during the heating or spin cycle - it's completely normal for that to happen. Your router and the machine are competing for the 2.4GHz frequency (most routers use that one), and since they're close to each other, the machine basically kills your signal. Try moving the router to a spot that's farther away, or if you can't do that, switch it to the 5GHz frequency if your device supports it - that one suffers way less from interference from appliances. If that still doesn't fix it, then yeah it could be a router problem, but I'd bet it's just a proximity issue.
Electromagnetic interference from appliances is real, but what few people mention is that distance matters a lot - if your router's sitting just a few meters from the washing machine, the wifi signal gets brutally affected during the spin cycle. Before blaming the router, try moving it to a location farther away or even putting an obstacle (wall, furniture) between the two. If it's still weak even after that, then the equipment might be degraded, but that's rare - most cases get sorted out just by repositioning.
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