Need help with congested wifi in condo

4

455olds

Gawd
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
791
I am running a Asus RT- N66U. I tried a lot of things in the past to get it to work but its still really bad. I tried running software on laptop to find least congested channels and changing channels.(helped but still not great) I also am running a extender.
It drops out all the time even though it shows a strong connection with the extender.
On the xbox one it is ok watching Netflix but gaming is really laggy. Turning wifi off on phone seams to help with lag. The computer in that same room has really slow download speed too.
Should I try a 5 ghz extender or is there a better router I could buy that might solve this problem?
 
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I don't mind spending some money on this if it works. Would 2 5ghz extenders possibly work?
 
Well Re-Run it, try inSSIDer, is the channel you are on congested or is it "overlapping"? There are only actually three true Wi-Fi channels, 1, 6 an 11. WIfi set on these networks will play nice and try to take turns talking, but those set in between, such as 2, 3, 7 etc. will interfere with those set properly on 1, 6 or 11. The newest version of inSSIDer will tell you if you are having overlaps. I have that exact model of router and it works GREAT, though I am out in the country with exactly zero competing signals. (More info: WiFi insights – Why you should avoid using channels other than 1, 6, 11 and 14 like the plague). I think the model pushes both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz signal by default).

You could try a factory reset and then load the latest firmware as well. Also where is it located in the house? Near any cordless phones or microwaves?
 
I would bet the problem is the extender. What happens if you take the extender out of the equation and simply connect directly to the AP with a laptop (if you get close enough). What brand is the extender? You should always use the same brand of Extender as the router. In my experience extenders are garbage. I just run Cat5 and run do a 2nd AP with the same ESSID and encryption.
 
Extender is a cheap linksys re1000. It is worse without it. WiFi is good close to router. WiFi doesn't make it into rooms well. I'll try what you listed above.
There is a better router or extender that can solve this? Will a r7000 work any better if I get a ac extender?
I thought routers where supposed to auto range channels? Would a high end router work better?
 
You need to run inSSIDer or somehting similar, most likely 5Ghz is fine and you just need your devices to use that frequency band.
 
Running wires is the best option for a good connection.

If that is not possible, I would get a REAL (enterprise grade) Cisco access point and be done with it.

You would just disable the built in wireless on the router and only use the wireless on the access point.

Depending on how big the place is, you may need to get two.. but you would have to run a wire for the second one.

And yes, wireless extenders are complete and utter garbage from my personal experience with them. Not only do you end up adding latency, but you add another point of failure as well as them not really helping out in the end.
 
This is actually for friends of mine. I set up their network for them. Running wires is not really a option. Its all finish walls.

I ordered one of these. There was another thread in here a while back that suggested this might work.

TP-LINK TL-PA4020P KIT AV500 2-Port Powerline Adapter
. Amazon.com: TP-LINK TL-PA4020P KIT AV500 2-Port Powerline Adapter with Power Outlet Pass-Through Starter Kit, Up to 500Mbps: Computers & Accessories

I have a computer and xbox in the room that are really the only 2 devices I am having problems with. Mainly the xbox is the problem having lag with online gaming. The smart tv and and other devices seam to hold a good connection and can stream video uninterrupted.
 
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I can't use 2.4 at all in my condo... run 5ghz without issue
 
All extenders are inherently flawed when going over wifi, because wifi is half duplex. So the problem compounds itself when using an extender. What ends up happening is something like this: Router sends a packet to the extender, The extender sends a packet to the client. The client sends a packet back to the extender, and the extender retransmits that to the router. Sounds reasonable enough, but realize that all of that occurs on the SAME channel unless your extender has two separate radios in it and retransmits to the client on a different channel. So each time a transfer occurs between one of the devices all other traffic must halt and wait. now throw a wifi device or two into the mix. That device is now competing for airtime against the extender both when it transmits from the router to itself, and when the extender transmits to the client. It's going to tank in a big hurry if you have other wifi devices also sharing the bandwidth with the extender.

The biggest advantage that the powerline adapter has over what you're doing is that generally speaking, the link between the extenders is isolated to only those two devices. If you tried multiple extenders in the same house they could potentially interfere with each other. The biggest drawback is you'll want them on the same circuit if possible for best performance, and at the least they probably have to be on the same phase to work at all.

What it sounds like is you really just need a wifi bridge. If for some reason you can't get the powerline extenders to work, you can do the same thing the extenders do, but over wifi. Rather than trying to share bandwidth with other devices, you want a dedicated link between two devices. Hardwire an access point into your ASUS router, and place it in the same room. Then in the other room, have another AP where you can hardwire the computer and xbox into that one. Then create a link between the two APs on an unused channel (Either 2.4ghz or 5ghz is that has more free space). That will give you a dedicated link that isn't shared with a bunch of devices. If you need wifi in that area, you would need yet another AP that is broadcasting on the same channel, SSID as the asus is, and is hard wired to the bridge. Clients would be able to roam between both the asus and the new AP, without the backhaul suffering from clients using up bandwidth. If you had a Good / Better / Best chart it would go like this:

Dedicated wifi bridge: Good
powerline: Better
Ethernet: Best

All 3 are doing the same thing, bridging the gap between the asus and the remote devices. Obviously the wifi bridge probably will have the highest device cost with the slowest speeds, but it is going to be the most likely to work because it doesn't have as many physical requirements as the other two. The cable is always the cheapest until you have to run it or pay to have someone run one, but will give the best performance. It might be cheaper to have someone run a drop than purchase two wifi devices for a bridge if that's an option.
 
I think I finally have this problem fixed finally.

The powerline didn't work,it was steady but it was just over dialup speed,very slow and it didn't work on for the cell phones in the house. (cell phones where dropping the wifi connection and going over data limits.)

I bought a Netgear R7000 blackhawk router and used the 5g connection. It worked but It didn't quite make it to the in the bedroom with the 5g connection for smart tv and there is a dell all in one desktop in the same room by the door that doesn't support 5g. I bought This blackhawk ex7000
extender. http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Night...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

I plugged the dell right into it and it gets the full 80mbps connection speed.(same as speed as at modem) The tv and everything is on 5g now and seams reliable.

Glad I got this fixed. It was a problem for years.
 
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