Wireless extender help.

M

magoo

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Oct 21, 2004
Messages
14,554
I have a Western Digital router that has 7 wired ports and is also wireless.
The wireless signal is pretty good in my house but degrades on the second floor. The router is in the basement.
How can I hook up an extender or whatever it is called to have better signal in the entire house?
 
Not sure about other extenders but mine requires an Ethernet be connected to the router and the other end to the extender. It has its own ssid and password but essentially acts as a wireless router. You may want to try a better wireless router first.
 
I have wired access, so if I needed to do something like that I could.


I was hoping to be able to have the extender have the same ssid/password.
 
If this is done, will access to the existing wireless of my router be conflicted?
In other words, if my existing wireless and this new AP were to have the same SSID would a device just select the best signal?
 
magoo said:
If this is done, will access to the existing wireless of my router be conflicted?
In other words, if my existing wireless and this new AP were to have the same SSID would a device just select the best signal?
Click to expand...

Correct, your device should automatically pick up the best signal available. It only becomes an issue when traveling across the threshold where one signal becomes greater than the other. The currect device will lose connection while it attempts to communicate with the old signal until it picks up the new one. As far as I know there is no way to fix this and it's inherent to all access point configurations.
 
Really, a device 1/2 the cost of the unifi could be setup that supports WDS. Throughput would be lower when connected to this AP but I'm guessing this is mostly 'cruisin' the web' traffic?
 
sc0tty8 said:
Really, a device 1/2 the cost of the unifi could be setup that supports WDS. Throughput would be lower when connected to this AP but I'm guessing this is mostly 'cruisin' the web' traffic?
Click to expand...

He says he has his router in his basement so either his setup is down there or he just keeps it out of sight while the rest of the household uses the internet normally upstairs.
 
NickJames said:
He says he has his router in his basement so either his setup is down there or he just keeps it out of sight while the rest of the household uses the internet normally upstairs.
Click to expand...

You got it right.
All the cable and equipment has been set up in the basement, as well as my personal gaming machines.

I ran hard cable to the rest of my house back before wireless became a thing.
(fortunately I bought the fastest cable I could at the time)

But now everybody runs pretty much wireless and I have some spots that have poor transmission.

If I wanted to spend some cash, I could put a big switch in the basement and simply connect a wireless in the main house, but an extender seems easier .

That Unifi thing might be just the ticket.:D
 
It's a great little device, they have much more powerful models and directional ones but for great 360 degree coverage the one I linked is great for the price. It was actually someone here that originally recommended it to me and I couldn't be happier with it.
 
since your house is hard wired, you could get another router, plug it into an upstairs ethernet jack, and run it in bridge mode. (I do this since I live in a long ranch with the main router in the far end of the house, the secondary router in the middle)
 
mnewxcv said:
since your house is hard wired, you could get another router, plug it into an upstairs ethernet jack, and run it in bridge mode. (I do this since I live in a long ranch with the main router in the far end of the house, the secondary router in the middle)
Click to expand...

That's another good idea, but the cost I think might be similar?

I will look into it though, thanks.:D
 
true, it might be similar, but also adds a 4 port switch to wherever u place it :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top