Which WiFi AC Options and PC adapter?

SSD Sean · October 16, 2018

My friends house has terrible WiFi. He is using the stock Comcast gateway and two netgear wireless N extenders. I’m looking to help him beef up his network with a faster WiFi ac extenders and a adapter for his moms PC on the other side of the house. Distance is like 70ft and there are three thick walls between his moms PC and router. Right now extending the signal with two WiFi N extenders nets about 4 Mbps, the service they pay for is over 100 and she would like to have better results. Using phones on WiFi in the living room near her computer, but father away by 10-15ft is almost impossible too. Moving their gateway is not an option.

I see that some of TPLink’s WiFi AC extenders look decent. For about $70. But I also have heard good things about the new WiFi mesh systems and it could be a viable option. I also have a netgear WiFi ac router I can give them and try to use it as an extender, but making cable run in their house is a bit complicated with their high ceilings, tho as a router it could offer better performance to the extenders than the stock gateway from their isp.

Any recommendations? Buget is somewhat flexible at about $2-300 as long as it delivers the results they need. I need an adapter card or usb for the desktop PC too.

Any help is appreciated!

Aprilfooldude · October 16, 2018

Does the PC have a good networking adapter? Or is that what you're asking

Mooshi · October 16, 2018

Or you can snake Ethernet cable and utilize network switches. Not as clean, but less expensive with better results. World of difference between around 40mbps and 180mbps for my den computer.

Derrk · October 16, 2018

I would replace the router with a high end a/c router to begin with..

SSD Sean · October 16, 2018

The PC needs a WiFi ac adapter, it only has a WiFi n adapter now and it is bobo at best.

Running cable isn’t really an option as much as I would like it to be myself. They don’t want to have to run a line, so we are gonna see what we can do with newer WiFi tech at first. They need WiFi for a laptop and iPhones in the living room too.

Any specific recommendations?

It’s mainly going to be up to 5-6 WiFi devices in use at once up to 100ft away from the gateway. there are thick cinderblock walls between the router now and the living room/office area so they have pinged the WiFi down the hallway via two WiFi N 300 extenders to get signal into the kitchen/living room/office area.

I was thinking of grabbing them one of the netgear nighthawks, but I wasnt sure if those mesh systems would work better than that with some extenders.