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Been using nordvpn for the longest time. But thinking about making a change if the price is right. Dont remember if LTT has been sponsored by any lately, so anyone has good recos that I can have a look at? Brownie points if I can get it to work on the Surface Pro X. Using Open VPN on that and it's sluggish AF

I recently purchased a Wi-Fi range extender for my home. It only has a 2.4GHz band, while my ISP provided router is dual band. Depending on where I use my laptop, I want to connect to the router's 5GHz network or the extender's 2.4GHz network. The problem: After connecting to the extender once, I can no longer connect to either of my router's networks on my windows 10 laptop. The issue does not happen on some other devices (more details below.) If I power cycle the extender, I can connect to my router if I don't connect to the extender first. The connection remains stable for hours. However if I then connect to the extender once, I can no longer connect to my router again, until I power cycle the extender. I consider myself relatively tech savvy however my knowledge in networking is very limited. Some specs and troubleshooting steps I have already tried below. Specs: Router: ZTE ZXHN H267A Extender: TP Link TL-WA850RE Laptop: Lenovo Legion 15ACH6H OS: Windows 10 (no available updates) Network adapter: Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz (no driver updates) Things that I tried: I get the following information from the control panel Network and Sharing Centre when I (can't) connect to the router: Running Windows Network Diagnostics tool gives the error "Wi-Fi" doesn't have a valid IP configuration. I tried to change the IP assignment settings for the 5GHz network to manual with the following settings I got from running ipconfig /all, however I was never able to save the settings getting the error Can't save IP settings. Check one or more settings and try again. IP Address: 192.168.1.14 (also tried different numbers for the last one, none worked) Subnet prefix length: 255.255.255.0 Gateway: 192.168.1.1 Preferred DNS: 192.168.1.1 Accessing networks using different devices: iPhone XS is able to freely switch between all networks Different Windows 11 laptop has same problem described above. My laptop has dual boot Ubuntu installed, so I tried connecting to the networks with the following results: If I boot into Ubuntu after having the issue in windows, Ubuntu has the same issue. If I power cycle the extender while on Ubuntu, it can connect to all networks in any order and freely switch between them. If I then boot into Windows, can't connect to router again. If I then boot into Ubuntu, can't connect to router until I power cycle extender. To me, it seems like a Windows issue somehow related to IP assignment. I tried messing with the IP and DHCP settings on both my router and the extender, but I was mostly guessing and nothing worked. Any recommendations other than returning the extender or using an ethernet cable is appreciated. Let me know if any other information is required.

Hello everyone. Im quite new to setting up home networking. My current home networking situation is quite old: ISP provided modem on the first floor with separate WiFi network and the WiFi 4 router on the second floor with separate WiFi network. I am not getting the internet speed I am paying for (500Mb/sec - max in my country for now) with this setup, AND I have to manually swap my WiFi connection every time I go to different floor, so I want to upgrade the whole networking system in my house. I want faster internet connection and want my phone and other devices to swap automatically the WiFi connection node. As I was looking up in Internet, Asus routers have a feature called AiMesh, and I dont fully get the difference of it from other dedicated Mesh system in the market. So the choice I have right now is buying 2 separate Asus routers (that supports WiFi 6 and AiMesh) or buy 2 piece Mesh system (that also supports WiFi 6). Can someone explain if there is any difference in practical daily usage between those two, and what should I go with? Thank you!

Hey folks, first time poster be gentle .. I'm looking into setting up a truenas server at home for file storage and my plex server, with eventual use to replace my cctv hopefully and have it all backed up and running through truenas, can it be done or am I well off?.. I currently run plex on my main pc arm but have no previous experience with truenas.. I've tried vm's in the past and failed miserably .. I've bought a couple year old system off a friend which I intend to add drive space to and use as the truenas build.. I've been looking into the ubiquiti dream machine pro to replace my router and add ap's and use unify protect through the dream machine to manage my cameras and network.. (do I need something like this or is it overkill) Not sure what else to put tbh, I need help though Anyone fancy holding my hand while I go on an adventure?

So I'm wanting to get an ethernet switch for my new home networking setup, it doesn't need to be faster than gigabit and it needs to have 8 ports. It needs to be bang for the buck though, anyone have any suggestions?

Hello! Comcast recently upgraded my internet service to 1.2Gb and I have attempted to configure LAGG via LACP to my MB8600 modem. I have successfully gotten this working and do in fact see the full 1.2Gb in a speedtest from the router! All outbound traffic seems to be functioning normally, no issues there. However, inbound traffic from the WAN side, such as trying to reach a web server I host, always times out on the client. I don't see any errors or collisions on the LAGG interface. When doing a packet capture I see a ton of TCP Retransmission packets coming from the client back into the router. What happens is, in this case my phone on data gets all of the packets out of order and sends a request for TCP Retransmission but continues getting the data out of order until it times out. This does not happen when I have the WAN as only one interface so I believe it is directly related to the LAGG splitting packets between the interfaces. Is there any way that I can fix this issue? Any recommendations would be appreciated!

I am currently building a house and I've moved in with family for the time being. I want to keep our networks separate and I am running into some issues. I have 2 routers. Router 1 (R1), which is what is connected directly to the ISP, is working fine. I am trying to connect R2's WAN to R1's LAN, and here is what I currently have configured: Router 1 Gateway: 192.168.0.1 Subnet: 255.255.255.0 Set up static IP to R2 as: 192.168.0.253 --------------------------------- Router 2 I guess for some reason I thought that on the LAN TCP/IP settings that the IP (which is the 10.0.0.1) should have matched the first image of 192.168.1.1, but when I use this the router resets it to the 10.0.0.1 after I update it. With it being it's own network, I am keeping DHCP active on R2. Can someone tell me what I'm not doing properly here? I've also tried using a subnet of 255.255.255.128 on R2 without much success. I can connect to R2's admin page but it has no internet.

Hey so I have been running this on and off for a few months and I have been trying to think of solution for how I should optimally take advantage of my hardware, so I thought I would just come to the forum and ask for some advice. Down below are the questions I have as well as the build I am using for my home server. So I have a "decently" collection of hardware and I put together a home server for storing files and running small game servers. I have been running into so many network problems and wanted to just seek bettwe advice as to how I should set the machine up to do what I need it to do. Before I moved this rig to Ubuntu it was on Windows and was a Media Encoder ingest server for the videos I edited (4k - 8k footage) After I moved it to Ubuntu it was my local NAS and minecraft server (it would be running upwards of 5 minecraft servers at a time each with upwards of 4-10GB of RAM dedicated to their instances). I currently live with 4 Twitch streamers 2 of us are editors that get a ton of footage pretty much every week (more like 40+ clips equalling upwards of 8gb+) so having a way to store VODS or download folders of clips from a google drive would help immensley. Now I am in the process of just reinstalling an OS and staring from scratch, but I want some advice on how I can acomplish some if not all of these tasks on one machine. Most importantly a NAS that will be access from pretty much only Windows machines and a machine to host game servers on, mnostly Minecraft. I don't really care for a "media server" because I have no idea how to even make use of that (like store stuff on it, I know the name Plex but not actually what it is/how it works) but I do have a theatre room, running off of an Xbox Series X and the house is networked with cat5e (i'm pretty sure). I know of unRaid but I'm not really looking to spend more money on this setup but if there aren't any other alternatives out there then I'm down to buy a liscence. For those wondering about security, I know this isn't the best way to do this but I find that it works fine, but I basically have a double NAT where my main router connects to my tplink router from LAN-WAN and the tplink router is in DHCP mode and is port-forwarded on all ports (1-65535) and then on the tplink the server is port-forwarded on certain ports like SSH, MYSQL, SFTP, HTTPS, etc... I am not very much into network sercurity but this is pretty the only thing I could find (for myself I know there is other stuff out there). Any advice is greatly appreciated thanks! Server Build: (Everything is already owned) https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KRKLGq

Hello fellas, im building a network for 3 villas to rent and need some help with the details. For now i have an idea to get a router and 3 Access points for each house and route them with RJ45. i want a router that can handle 2 lines from my ISP because the speed is kinda slow and wonky here so if i need more bandwith and speed in the future i will need the router to handle 2 lines then divide the bandwith to the 3 AP's with different ssid's. The hardwear im looking at at the moment are: for the router MikroTik RB3011UiAS-RM and for the AP's 3 Ubiquiti Unifi AP AC PRO and my laptop for setup. I also have a TP-Link SG108PE switch, could i use it to power the AP's with PoE ? I see my router has 1 PoE port, would it be better to buy the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter 6P ? the access points will be on the 1st floor, of a 60m2 room and the 2nd floor is 20m2. there is a big metal staircase that connects the two floors that i fear will interfere with the signal but i think 1 AP per villa will be fine. I think the setup is adequate but i would really appreciate your input on it. thank you in advance.

Hi All Despite stating numerous times, our electrician has run the ethernet cables throughout the house without documenting where each one goes. There are (I believe) 21 total runs, most are for PCs, with 2 APs and a few cameras. Does anyone happen to have a good way of sorting this? At the moment I'm thinking the only way will be trial and error with a cable tester, until I get a match then rinse and repeat. I was going to do this anyway as I want to make sure the job has been done properly before moving in, but it's a bit different when I have no idea which 2 ends match. I am half tempted to do it after moving and connecting devices so I can check the ports against my router and see what is plugged in, and then test...

Been trying to find reliable info on new affordable routers that both support WPA3 and 6GHz is proving to be difficult. Anyone here pickup such a router recently? I have a feeling that I will need to wait a bit longer to find one that is affordable. Ideally the Software would be easy to navigate and configure, particularly when connecting the ISP Gateway to it. Looking for something that is somewhat easy to manage other devices on the network, I frequently need to log in to temporarily restrict some users access. Setting up the DNS should be easy too; Cloudflare is pretty decent. I assume the VPN setup would be all or nothing. Are there any routers that allow you select certain devices to use the VPN? or even a unique DNS for certain devices? I know these two question will probably lead you to recommend a standalone system with something like pfSense or untangle. These are nice to have on a home network but not necessary, especially since I don't really want to spend too much time messing with settings in my home environment.

I'm very much a beginner when it comes to Home Networking, so please be patient with me and explain as best as you can. I'm using Frontier's Fiber 500/500 plan, and am looking to buy a Mesh Network system as speeds in my house's bedrooms are quite slow. I'm hoping to use ethernet in at least 1 of the rooms to a mesh unit. I came across the Amazon Eero 6 and TP-Link Deco X55 on Amazon for around the same price and both had pretty good reviews. Would you recommend one over the other? At first glance, the TP-Link Deco X55 is released newer (I am aware of the Eero 6 Pro, but that is much more expensive), each of the 3 units has an ethernet port, and its maximum capacity (if I were to upgrade internet speeds in the future) is more than the Eero 6's limited 500. How would I go about hooking them up? I'm currently using the Arris NVG468MQ Gateway provided by Frontier, which is located downstairs in my kitchen and is through the wall connected to the outside of my house to the Frontier-provided ONT (Model FOG421). Where is the most ideal spot to put the "main router" unit? Amazon's Eero 6 only contains one with an ethernet port with 2 extenders, while the Tp-link deco x55 contains all three that can serve as a router (or extender). Do I continue using the gateway? Or would any of the units "replace" the gateway? If I can indeed replace the gateway, would the ethernet cable running from the gateway (into the ONT) be instead plugged into one of the units? Thus with the Amazon Eero 6, I wouldn't be able to use ethernet into a unit in my bedroom right, since the "router unit" is already occupied downstairs. Does the 1 Eero 6 router, or any of the three X55 units, plug into one of the ports on the Gateway? What settings do I need to change in my 192.168.254.254 page after I install the mesh system? Besides getting a mesh system, should I also invest in a router? The only place in my house with an ethernet jack built into the wall is where the existing gateway is plugged into, so would the router just "replace" the gateway if that makes sense? I hope my questions make sense and while I am decently tech-savvy, networking is a brand new ballpark for me so any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated

Hey guys, I'm trying to set up a proper ethernet setup in my house, and I have a concern about the switch I'm using. For context, the system runs like the quick diagram I attached. The attic that the main switch is in can regularly get up to 110-125 Fahrenheit during the North Carolina summer, and I've noticed on all the network switches I look at, they all have operating temperatures listed. How important are those numbers, and if the one I'm dealing with are too high, what are my options? Thanks, Wallace

Tl;dr: I'm moving into a four story townhouse and would like to use powerline to give my roommates wired connections and create one additional wireless AP. What are some good options and what will determine how successful they are? Can I test my wiring for powerline compatibility somehow? I'm about to move into a four story townhouse built in 2014. As the most network savvy of our group, I've been tasked with figuring out our setup. Our only ISP option is Comcast (thanks American internet cartels), so we'll either have a 600/10 or 1000/35 connection. Our modem will probably be on the ground floor, since that's where my room is and I want an ethernet connection straight to my PC. I have two goals: Ensure decent WiFi signal throughout the home by adding (at least) a second AP on the third floor Provide wired connections to each of the other three bedrooms. Two on the third floor, one on the fourth Three options came immediately to mind for network hardware: Finally drop a bunch of money on a Ubiquiti pro-sumer setup (probably Unifi gear). Most likely struggle to configure it properly, still have to run a bunch of wires, and if it works end up with an expensive and over-engineered solution Some sort of mesh WiFi system. Easy to install but susceptible to interference from all our neighbors and wouldn't provide any truly hardwired ports Powerline. Until I looked into it again all I had heard was that the tech struggled to achieve any decent speed even in it's ideal conditions. Now it seems like tp-link has a bunch of solid options, and, provided our electrical wiring and appliances play nice, could meet both of my two goals So I'm leaning towards powerline, but I have some questions I'm struggling to find answers to: Has powerline improved? In an ideal setup will it perform closer to running cables than a mesh WiFi setup? Do the adapters need to be on the same circuit to perform well? How much interference should I expect from our appliances? E.g. will the powerline connection drop when someone decides to run a load of laundry? Can I test my wiring with a fox & hound tool? If I can hear the tone at the other wall outlet does that bode well for powerline's chances? Should I stop bothering the good people of the LTT forum, just buy a powerline kit, and try my luck? Thanks in advance for any help

Here is my issue. I have a home nas box running out of an old computer. I have the drive shared on my network with permissions set so that my microsoft account has full control. I can only access the mapped share drive from my main computer if i have nordvpn running. If it is not running it tells me that i don't have permission to access \\"computer name"\"drive". I am relatively new to this and i'm not sure how to access the share drive while im not connected to nordvpn as it bottlenecks my speeds. any help would be greatly apprecated.

Hey everyone, so I've got an old Mac Pro 1,1 laying around, and I was wondering if it would be a good Idea to turn it into a NAS array with a few high capacity storage drives. It's got 4 slots, for drives, so boot drive and 3 storage spots, and has 2 Xeon processors with 4 gigs of RAM to back it up. So my questions are: Would it be a good idea to even do this in a Mac Pro, or would it be better to go with something else? Will I need more RAM, or is 4GB plenty Should I use Mac OSX file sharing, or would it be a better idea to go with some other Linux Distribution? Thanks for the help you guys!

I've been getting into networking a bit recently, but I'm pretty new to the field so I have a few questions: Is it possible to use a HP Procurve 1700-24 switch as a cabled router? Which IP range(s) can you use for internal subnetworks and the like? ie.: 10.0.0.x, 192.168.x.x, etc. And how does one configure subnetworks on non *nix machines? Thanks in advance :^)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320272 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320323 2 NICs and one switch for less than $500.00 10 Gb networking is becoming cheaper. The question is, how much benefit would one receive when switching to 10 Gb? I don't think a NAS would benefit much, unless you are using SSDs instead of mechanical hard drives.

Currently using powerline, I found that powerline isn't particuarly good as it's unreliable and need to upgrade it anyway as my powerline is up to 100mbps and we recently upgraded to 200mbps. I also have a dead spot in my room that I want to solve using an access point (the powerline was plugged into my pc). I was told that the best methods are just a huge ethernet cable from my router or perhaps a MOCA setup. Unfortunately, there are no MOCA ports in my room and it's super hard to run an ethernet cable through my house without making holes in the walls as the house is awkwardly shaped and so has a huge distance it'd need to cover. Are there any alternative methods?

Hi, Wondering if you all could help with me some home internet issues. I just moved to a new place in the Raleigh, NC area, and I have Time Warner Cable/Spectrum as my ISP. The complex is supposed to be pre wired for TWC. I am using an Arris Surfboard SB6121. I have already called the ISP to provision the device by providing the MAC address. However, the "internet" light never comes on, the send and receive lights continue to blink, and the "transmit" light slowly blinks blue. I have a laptop plugged directly into the modem, but it receives DNS errors when trying to load webpages. Plugging in a router that I know works allows all devices to connect to the router, but I encounter the same issues when trying to load webpages. I have power-cycled the modem, had the ISP confirm they can see the modem on their network, switched coax cables, switched ethernet cables, all without success. ISP had no idea what was going on, and I ran out of time to troubleshoot further. I will be calling them back later today after work; any ideas on what questions I could ask them to drive the process forward? Thank you all in advance. Mods, if this needs to be in the networking section, please feel free to move it. UPDATE: Turns out that Time Warner Cable "forgot to connect the internet to my modem". The new tech saw the problem immediately and fixed it. Thank you all for the help; crazy that it was such a simple fix, but at least I learned something today

I was looking into setting up a pfsense box for my networking and firewall. What kind of hardware is needed to be needed to build and implement this in a home setup. Thanks

I am looking for a Xeon processor that could be used with pfsense that is low powered for my router. I am ok with red or blue cpu’s but I was thinking that xeons are better at staying on 24/7 and stuff like that. thanks?

Skip to the bottom if you don't want to read a story Backstory (not important): So a while back my beloved Nighthawk (I believe it was an R7000, don't have it in front of me to verify) just stopped working suddenly. WiFi went down across the house, and no amount of rebooting, reseting, unplugging, etc. Would bring it back. I couldn't log into it and it wouldn't broadcast or route, I couldn't ping it, nothing. It would start to boot, and then just sit like it was frozen... So I cried and sulked and moved the cabling for the switches from the nighthawk to the craptastic modem/router/AP/switch/dildo from spectrum. I turned on the wifi, and configured the SSID's and keys to match my previous configuration. And my family continued with their streaming and internet fun. I wasn't happy with the situation, but I didn't want to go spend $200 on an exact replacement as that R7000 just wasn't powerful enough to serve the whole house anymore. Backstory (continued, more significant stuff): My R7000 broke, I got my lucky hands on some Aruba IAP-305's. Took some time to learn to use them and configure them, but I've only ever worked with consumer networking gear. My first go around, I thought I had everything perfect, I setup 2 SSID's to mimic my previous configuration (so I wouldn't have to update networking on all the wireless devices), placed one in my office, and the other on the opposite side of the house. (both connected with a cable of course, screw wireless backhaul). 2 days later, we're getting ready to host a party, and I setup a 3rd SSID for a guest network because why not? It's so easy! Friend arrived the night before because he's from out of town, His phone was on our main wifi but his Nintendo Switch was on the new guest network. All seems good, until he wants to cast YouTube from his phone to one of the xbox's. The Xbox was wired. And it wasn't showing up as something he could cast to on his phone... I recognize I must've done something wrong, that ARP broadcasts aren't working, so I try random nonsense in a panic, and break the whole wireless network.. and I didn't have a backup configuration file, because I was full of myself. So I reset both IAP's, setup my 2 main SSIDs, and just try to let things be for the night. My House/setup: 3300 sqft single story Modem and router are in my office, which is not centrally located. Wired Networking throughout most of the house with switches in each room. All wired terminates at my office. Wired Devices multiple Xbox's multiple PC's 1 smart TV A Hue bridge Wink HUB 2 printers and of course a bunch of dumb (I believe they would be called L2) switches. Wireless Devices multiple Chromecasts multiple smart TVs A lot of Amazon Echo Dot's Chamberlin MyQ smart garage door opener Smart phones SSID's Because my old setup had "networkname-2.4G" and "networkname-5G", I recreated those, but set the SSID broadcast to hidden because that was dumb to begin with, I also set them to both support 2.4GHz and 5GHz. I created a third SSID "networkname" that broadcasts and has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios enabled. Basically all 3 SSID's above are configured identically, except the old ones have their SSID's hidden because I don't want to use them anymore, but am lazy and don't want everything to still work while I'm slowly migrating devices to the new SSID Hardware 2 IAP-305's (wired)(in future, I want to put one in each individual room, because why not? I have access to 6 total, and I've only deployed 2) That craptastic spectrum modem/router/AP/switch/etc device. I'm using it as a modem and switch/router currently, AP is disabled. TL;DR/Actual Request for assistance: My lack of experience with enterprise gear, and all has put me in a position where I get to learn a lot of new cool things. The downside is my house is now in a state of half working half not, and my wife is getting frustrated with it. I've managed to semi-resolve most all of the issues, but I don't know if my solutions are at all correct, so I'm looking for help, if anyone recognizes any of these issues, or if I'm doing something obviously wrong... I'll post my current configuration tonight when I get home if it would help. I'm primarily looking for some advice on what settings I need to configure so the IAP's work without hickups at my house and all my wireless and wired devices can ARP to eachother and interact without a problem. Problem List: Half the echo dot's have suddenly started having trouble connecting to the network. I had to reset them last night and move them to the new SSID, then they started working A different echo dot has had some issues with being very slow to respond to requests, I'll say "Turn the lights off" and after 30 seconds, it will indicate the job is done, but it will be a full 2 minutes before the lights finally turned off. All my chromecasts dropped off the network, and refused to work. I had to factory reset them, but then they kept failing to let me add them to the network because they couldn't authenticate.. I eventually learned I had to uninstall and reinstall the google home app on my phone and suddenly I could set them up again. One of the wireless smart TV's is very very slow to buffer video. It's within spitting distance of the primary IAP-305 (I think it's called the virtual controller? I have it set as main.), but has intermittent issues with buffering hulu. The MyQ garage door controller is in the garage, opposite side of the house from the primary IAP, but connects to the primary IAP-305 instead of the one that's closer to it. It shows in dashboard that it's got a weak signal, but I don't know how to force it to connect to the closer access point. I'm still having casting troubles. Both wireless and wired devices will show up and drop out of the list of devices one can cast to randomly and frequently. Because the IAP-305's have a fairly strong broadcast, in some cases where I'm moving from one side of the house to the other, my phone wont switch which AP it's connected to. I know this because I'll have 4/5 bars of signal on my phone, instead of 5/5. Now this is the smallest of my problems. But I'm wondering if there's a way to decrease the broadcast power so it doesn't overlap so heavily and maybe that will help with the roaming/handshake/passover.

I'm trying to run OpenWRT on ESXi however I'd like to have all my ethernet ports as LAN/WAN, is there a way so that i can setup the web management so that i can access the management website from any computer connected to openwrt?

Hi guys, I recently created a NAS and connected it to my network. One of my computer are connected to network via Tp-Link adapter for internet over power rated for 500Mb/s. But only on that pc i am getting 100Mb/s performance. I tried switching cables and everything but i cant get it to work faster. I am noob in networking so any help is welcome. Thanks in advance. Edit: I just noticed that my network card on pc is working on 100Mb/s same speed as my router port.Is there a way to hard lock it on 1Gb/s mode.(both support that mode).