extender looses dns ability over time

[m9x3mos]

Hello all,

Running into something weird and I am hoping someone else has seen this and might have an idea why it is happening.

In my place, the internet comes in to the main room near the entrance (only room that has a workable coax cable). My office is about 70 ft away. I normally work fine with wireless internet on my machines and the speed over wifi can saturate the throughput of my modem no problem.

I now have 5 machines (storage server, vm server, dev mac, work laptop, and my personal gaming tower) in the same room that are all on wifi. The storage server and vm server already had a dedicated 10gig link between them, but transferring data to and from them is severely bottlenecked by my wifi.

My solution was to pickup a wireless range extender, plug it's ethernet port into a switch and then those machine into the switch to get internet and file transfer between the machines over wire instead.

After things are booted up, everything will work perfectly fine for 6 - 10 hours. Then the DNS lookups fail on the connected machines. Any active connections both on the local network and internet continue to work correctly (ie. rdp sessions or xfinity streams). I need to restart the router or extender and it starts working correctly again.

I have so far tried reseting the router back to factory settings and only securing the wifi and had the same problem. I have also tried a different router and a different extender and that has not seemed to have fixed the issue.

I have also tried setting manual ip addresses and dns entries on the extender and connected machines which didn't seem to change anything either. It is just very weird that the dns lookups fail at random. Checking the logs on the router or the extender, I am not seeing anything that stands out as a problem.

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated as running a wire through the walls it not something I can really do in this apartment.

[m9x3mos]

Oh as a secondary note, other devices that are connected to the wifi router directly do not have any problems when this happen and are working perfectly. The wifi broadcast on the extender is actually disabled as I do not need to expand the range of it.

[DakotaWebber]

28 minutes ago, m9x3mos said:

After things are booted up, everything will work perfectly fine for 6 - 10 hours. Then the DNS lookups fail on the connected machines. Any active connections both on the local network and internet continue to work correctly (ie. rdp sessions or xfinity streams). I need to restart the router or extender and it starts working correctly again.

Sounds like it could be the leases for the devices/extender expiring and then when theyre reacquired theyre not getting dns?

 

Rather than a "wifi extender" it sounds like you should go with a switch or a hub?

[m9x3mos]

I am not aware of any switch or hub that takes a wireless signal as their uplink.

[m9x3mos]

Good point though @DakotaWebber. I didn't think of dhcp lease time. I am going to try setting it for 3 days up from 1 and see if I can get through a day without problem. 

To use a actual switch I need to actually run a cable between the two locations. Since I can't go through the walls, it needs to run through the living space and the will get constant wife agro.

[DakotaWebber]

Ah apologies I must have read it wrong

 

I wouldnt doubt that your network is seeing the wifi extender as one device and the others beyond it arent able to reacquire properly, or that the extender doesnt know how to manage the leases properly

[Falcon1986]

@m9x3mos

 

What you’re describing is a problem with wireless range extenders in general. Their function is only to extend coverage, not to be reliable and consistent. This works fine for low bandwidth devices like smart/IoT gear, but not other devices where getting full use of your bandwidth is necessary. That’s because they operate at half-duplex. Furthermore, a range extender will work worse the further they are from the primary wireless signal.

 

What is the make/model of the range extender?

 

You seem to have a setup that would benefit more from a direct wired link to the modem. Since you already have a switch connecting all of your devices, just run ethernet from the switch to the modem. Yes, I understand the “wife-factor”, but if your work is important to you and the range extender is limiting what you can do, then you have to come to a compromise. Ethernet does not have to be run through walls; you can run it along the edges of walls/ceilings or walls/floors and tack them down neatly with cable tacks. And, they come in so many colours, you can get one that closely matches the background for better camouflage.

[m9x3mos]

Hello @Falcon1986
Sorry for the late response. 

I mainly need reliable and fast connections just between the pcs at my desk, not to other ones on the network. Everything is pretty much within 5 feet of me.

The one I am using now ir a TP Link re450.

https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/range-extender/re450/

I do have a linksys router, it might be compatibility thing. Or maybe multiple devices on an eithernet port. Not sure if maybe it just isn't designed to handle that.

[Falcon1986]

1 hour ago, m9x3mos said:

Hello @Falcon1986
Sorry for the late response. 

I mainly need reliable and fast connections just between the pcs at my desk, not to other ones on the network. Everything is pretty much within 5 feet of me.

The one I am using now ir a TP Link re450.

https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/range-extender/re450/

I do have a linksys router, it might be compatibility thing. Or maybe multiple devices on an eithernet port. Not sure if maybe it just isn't designed to handle that.

I think you're misunderstanding how LAN traffic will flow in your network. Despite everything being wired to the switch, the switch still has to communicate with the primary router over your poor WiFi/extender connection.

 

The problem isn't compatibility; it's just that wireless range extenders are terrible if you want a reliable connection.