Home wireless network nightmare

[BampirU]

Hello all,

 

2 things I want to say before I start this post:

- I have 0 knowledge about networking stuff although I know a bit about other PC related aspects. 

- This post will be a bit long

 

The current problem: I have a "long" apartment, my wifi router(Dlink DIR 878)is near my PC, in one corner of the apartment, the signal dose not reach the other corner of the apartment (1 bar of signal or less). I got a range extender from Dlink but the results are quite poor. I am facing several problems with this setup:

- I have 2 wireless networks: Main Wifi and Extended Wifi and I have to manually switch between them, quite annoying

- The Extended wifi seems to have this strange lag, sometimes is seems I am connected to the Internet but no data in getting through, a Youtube video, for example is stuck in an infinite loading loop. If I turn wifi off and on on the mobile devices, it works great.

- My wireless devices are getting "stuck" on the range extended even when I am near the main wifi router, which has a stronger signal, so again I have to switch between them manually

- Since I installed the Range Extender, the main router has a strange error, sometimes all mobile devices report "Network access denied" on the main wifi router. Sometimes waiting 1-2 mins fixes this, other times I have to restart it.

 

The cable connection is working great, no lag, no drops. Speed I have:

- Cable connection: 1 Gigabit down, 750 Mbps up, tested and working fine - 2 PCs connected by cable

- Main wifi: 550 Mbps down, 550 Mbps up, which I think is also fine - 4/5 wireless devices at any one time

- Extended wifi: 130 Mbps down, 110 Mbps up - 3/4 wireless devices at any one time, this seems a bit low to me, download speed on the mobile devices suffers a bit.

 

I don't know if my problems are hardware related, I am willing to buy new router/extender but the current setup is not working at all. 

I was thinking of betting a wired only router for my 2 PCs and a mesh setup for the rest of the house. 2 problems here:

- no idea what router / mesh hardware to go for

- no idea how to set up a mesh or even is if a mesh would be the solution for me.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you!

 

 

 

[Kenpachi]

For the PCs, I would suggest for maybe a CAT cable as that would greatly help. I personally stopped using WiFi on my laptop/PCs due to latency loss and packet drops. CAT cables are pretty reliable comparatively.  A CAT5/CAT6 cable would maybe be suitable for you. Also you should try calling the service staff and ask them to look into this because as far as I've noticed, WiFi router placement also matters, you should contact the ISP to check out the problem.

[narrdarr]

you can look into powerline adapter and put an AP on the other end

[Falcon1986]

@BampirU

 

Personally, I put "range extenders" in the category of "last resort" for improving wireless range if none of the very basic setups work. If you're going to use a wireless range extender, then you have to accept that it won't give you the fastest speeds possible as you'd find on your primary wireless router. It's just how these devices work.

1. What is the make/model of this range extender? I'm assuming it's connecting to your primary wireless router by a wireless signal; please correct if I'm mistaken.
2. Run a wireless survey using WiFi Analyzer close to where your wireless access point is located. Post the screenshots of the 'Anaylze' (run for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) and 'Networks' page. Please obfuscate any WAN IP addresses or MAC addresses that you don't want others to see, but highlight your SSID.
3. Can you post a rough sketch of the apartment's floor plan making note of the locations of the network devices?
4. Do you have the ability to run gigabit ethernet from one side of the apartment to the other?

[BampirU]

13 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

@BampirU

 

Personally, I put "range extenders" in the category of "last resort" for improving wireless range if none of the very basic setups work. If you're going to use a wireless range extender, then you have to accept that it won't give you the fastest speeds possible as you'd find on your primary wireless router. It's just how these devices work.

1. What is the make/model of this range extender? I'm assuming it's connecting to your primary wireless router by a wireless signal; please correct if I'm mistaken.
2. Run a wireless survey using WiFi Analyzer close to where your wireless access point is located. Post the screenshots of the 'Anaylze' (run for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) and 'Networks' page. Please obfuscate any WAN IP addresses or MAC addresses that you don't want others to see, but highlight your SSID.
3. Can you post a rough sketch of the apartment's floor plan making note of the locations of the network devices?
4. Do you have the ability to run gigabit ethernet from one side of the apartment to the other?

Thaks for the reply.

1. You are correct, It's a Dlink 1600 series.

2. I've attached several results. You'll notice a high access time for one site, like a stutter, exactly what I am getting in regular use. Also, mine is the only 5GHZ network available.

3. Attached, my robot cleaner map helped :)

4. I do not, unfortunetly.

[Falcon1986]

@BampirU

 

Couldn’t find a proper link to your range extender.

 

Unfortunately, if you put a range extender at the very fringes of a poor WiFi signal, I find it difficult to imagine that it will have much to boost, which is kind of ironic.

 

Range extenders or repeaters, unfortunately, are advertised by manufacturers as solving your wireless dead spots, but they do so at a cost. They are always operating at half-duplex: they not only have to simultaneously communicate wirelessly with the primary wireless router, but also have to communicate wirelessly with clients. If the primary wireless router and the range extender are linked over a 2.4GHz channel, you’re not only on a limited spectrum, but your 2.4GHz airspace is already proving to be congested. And the client-side speed will also be affected by the limits of the wireless band to which the are connecting.

 

I can’t see much tweaking being possible with your current WiFi situation. You could put your 2.4GHz broadcast on channel 11 and reduce the channel width to 20MHz. This might improve performance slightly, but your inconsiderate neighbours need to stop using such wide channel widths on 2.4GHz because it just interferes with everyone else’s networks.

 

The ideal way to improve your wireless coverage would be to wire in an access point and position it closer to where you need it. That way you have a reliable wired uplink to the router all the time but can still connect to the new access point or the primary wireless router depending on which signal is strongest.

 

If you absolutely cannot run ethernet, then you can try looking into powerline adapters or MoCa, which have their limitations as well (especially powerline), but they should be better than what you have now. I don’t personally like powerline because of their unreliability, so I’ll let someone else give you recommendations.

[BampirU]

Thanks for the explanation. If I find a way to run an extra cable, and get a second router, is there a way to "merge" the 2 wifi networks. The idea is that If I invest extra effort and money into the problem, I don't want to have 2 wifi networks like now, I want just one network for my entire apartment. 

 

I don't know if this is possible, to my understanding this is how mesh networks work. 

 

If you could offer me a solution for this, I would be grateful. 

[Falcon1986]

7 hours ago, BampirU said:

Thanks for the explanation. If I find a way to run an extra cable, and get a second router, is there a way to "merge" the 2 wifi networks. The idea is that If I invest extra effort and money into the problem, I don't want to have 2 wifi networks like now, I want just one network for my entire apartment. 

 

I don't know if this is possible, to my understanding this is how mesh networks work. 

 

If you could offer me a solution for this, I would be grateful. 

No, I didn’t suggest adding a second router. I suggested adding a wireless access point. Some home wireless routers can be converted to access point mode using a simple switch within its webUI, while it’s more difficult for others. By adding a wireless access point, you’re basically just adding another antenna in a zone where your signal is weak. That access point allows your clients entry into the primary network over the ethernet cable to the primary router. The primary router retains its functions as router and switch.

 

This is not “merging” of wireless networks, but you can definitely configure the wireless access point to use the same SSID as your primary wireless router. So your wireless clients can roam between signals depending on which is stronger. It’s important to set this up properly so there is proper hand-off and reconnection for your clients. By that, I mean you have to position your wireless access point and configure appropriately so that a.) the signal radius just barely overlaps with the primary wireless router’s signal radius, b.) they are each utilizing non-overlapping wireless channels for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios, and c.) the power output of the radio is just sufficient to cover the area that you need.

 

This is NOT how a mesh system works. Mesh systems require units geared towards mesh specifically. If you have the ability to run ethernet from the primary wireless router, adding a new wireless access point will simpler, more reliable and less costly than a mesh system... especially for a home with that kind of layout.

 

Please specify the budget you’re working with and the region you’ll be shopping in. Do you have access to common online stores like Amazon, eBay, etc?

[BampirU]

6 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

No, I didn’t suggest adding a second router. I suggested adding a wireless access point. Some home wireless routers can be converted to access point mode using a simple switch within its webUI, while it’s more difficult for others. By adding a wireless access point, you’re basically just adding another antenna in a zone where your signal is weak. That access point allows your clients entry into the primary network over the ethernet cable to the primary router. The primary router retains its functions as router and switch.

 

This is not “merging” of wireless networks, but you can definitely configure the wireless access point to use the same SSID as your primary wireless router. So your wireless clients can roam between signals depending on which is stronger. It’s important to set this up properly so there is proper hand-off and reconnection for your clients. By that, I mean you have to position your wireless access point and configure appropriately so that a.) the signal radius just barely overlaps with the primary wireless router’s signal radius, b.) they are each utilizing non-overlapping wireless channels for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios, and c.) the power output of the radio is just sufficient to cover the area that you need.

 

This is NOT how a mesh system works. Mesh systems require units geared towards mesh specifically. If you have the ability to run ethernet from the primary wireless router, adding a new wireless access point will simpler, more reliable and less costly than a mesh system... especially for a home with that kind of layout.

 

Please specify the budget you’re working with and the region you’ll be shopping in. Do you have access to common online stores like Amazon, eBay, etc?

I think I got it. 

 

2 final questions:

- About cabling everything up: after I get the access point, I should connect it to my existing main router, using one of the available ports I currently use to connect my PCs, correct? My router has 4, I only use 2 right now. 

- Regarding the hardware, I was looking at something like the Dlink DAP 2610 dual band, this costs about 100 EURO where I live, and that would be as much as I would spend. Got any other suggestions? I would prefer new. Amazon is an option but local vendors are faster and usually have good stock. 

[Falcon1986]

4 hours ago, BampirU said:

- About cabling everything up: after I get the access point, I should connect it to my existing main router, using one of the available ports I currently use to connect my PCs, correct? My router has 4, I only use 2 right now.

That is correct.

 

4 hours ago, BampirU said:

- Regarding the hardware, I was looking at something like the Dlink DAP 2610 dual band, this costs about 100 EURO where I live, and that would be as much as I would spend. Got any other suggestions? I would prefer new. Amazon is an option but local vendors are faster and usually have good stock. 

I don't have experience using that access point but the specs look decent. Keep in mind that the DAP 2610 tops out at 867Mbps on the 5GHz band, and that's in ideal conditions. Since you have gigabit internet, you'd have to accept that you won't be taking full advantage of your internet connection on a single device connecting to this access point. There will be lots of overhead for simultaneous connections with other devices, however.

 

While it might be out of your budget, the Ubiquit UAP-AC-Pro would be a better fit here as it has the capacity on paper to saturate your internet connection.