Wifi Range, Oh What a Difference Router Elevation Makes

Status
Not open for further replies.
L

LoneRanger

Joined
Jul 2, 2007
Messages
5,294
I'm now on the losing end of wifi range. At my old house I sold in April, the TP-Link AC1350 was upstairs near the hallway that opens to main floor living room vaulted ceiling. Oh the wonderful signal strength my wifi devices enjoyed in that house. Think I even heaped praise on the router in thread here after I got it, at the time, for what great signal strength we got all throughout the main floor of the home and even in the yard.

Fast forward to now. Same TP-Link AC1350 (C59) router, different house. Single level home w/ data source (broadband CATV socket) in extra bedroom at one end of the house. Most wifi devices get used on other end of the home. Not good. Don't know if builder used crazy thick drywall (not really), or there's a stealth metal grid imbedded in the walls (just kidding), but we can barely get a signal in the kitchen, which is the far point.

I need to either elevate the router somehow that doesn't look too janky, or buy a more powerful unit. It has three antennas, which tried every configuration of with no success.
 
Same problem in my single level home. I have a long USB cable on each adapter so I can move the antenna around to find the best signal strength. Helps a lot.
 
I use two Asus routers, with one the master and the 2nd, located halfway across the house, the node. Full signal everywhere.
 
Since the trouble spot seems to be primarily isolated to one room, is a signal extender an option?
 
The best I've done regarding to wifi signal is a pair of power over ethernet adapter, and a router on each side. It brings so much flexibility on where I can put my routers.
 
Last edited:
Is it really that hard for some homes to pass WiFi signal? I have an old Asus RT-66U in what's basically the middle of the middle of my 100 year old, 2,600 square foot 2 story house and I get perfectly good signal everywhere. Enough to stream 4k at the furthest point.
 
Two wifi routers would be also my suggestion, but in order to have full speed, they need to be wired to the main modem, not set up as wireless repeaters.

The way I have it in my house, the comcast modem is also a wired router and is wireless with very good signal strength. So I have the comcast modem set up as a wireless router and I wired a spare wireless router I had to it, since I have cat5 cables running to every room. this way I have one wireless modem upstairs on one end of the house and another on downstairs on the other end.
It's not a perfect setup by any stretch of imagination since these are two different wireless routers, my phone doesn't always switch to the stronger signal, but all i have to do is turn the wifi off and on again. It then picks up the one that is stronger.
 
I have a TP Link and up until recently my Samsung blu ray was wireless i had to add a rand extender which helped.
 
I'd like to add: with two Asus routers, the switch between which router you're connected to and which frequency you're operating on, is controlled by the routers themselves. In other words, My entire house is covered by one single SSID "gathermewool". When I walk from the family room to the bedroom, the transition is seamless.

All I had to do is upgrade my main router to a better router and use the old router as the "node" router. SUPER easy to setup.
 
We have a two story home, router is close to centrally located but still a bit further to one end of the house, mounted at the top of a coat closet on the main floor.
Being anal as I am I built a little reflector to slightly increase signal to the further end of the house with the second floor office and main floor master, even though everything was fine without it. Also was no sense it having all that signal go to the house next door. :eek:)

In your case, for sure, as high as possible, heck you can even put the router in the attic if you wanted but it would seem a simple wifi extender would be the least trouble.

[Linked Image]
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by RTexasF
This is what the newer WiFi mesh systems are for. Why not look into them?

+1 they are incredible because they hand off the wifi on same SSID appropriately don't hang on for dear life to a router creating a terrible experience.
 
Nothing at all wrong with mesh Wifi BUT I am a believer in not using something that you do not need.

More or less, make sure your router and system is properly set up before looking for solutions for something not properly set up :eek:)

A lot of homes, mesh is overkill but successful for poorly placed and set up routers. Simplicity is always best if possible and in many cases it is possible as many homes are not so large that they are at the limits of the router.

Of course, large homes and commercial buildings that is another story.
 
Originally Posted by alarmguy
Nothing at all wrong with mesh Wifi BUT I am a believer in not using something that you do not need.

More or less, make sure your router and system is properly set up before looking for solutions for something not properly set up :eek:)

A lot of homes, mesh is overkill but successful for poorly placed and set up routers. Simplicity is always best if possible and in many cases it is possible as many homes are not so large that they are at the limits of the router.

Of course, large homes and commercial buildings that is another story.



Very good point!

I live in a raise ranch with two extensions on either side. The cable inlet, modem and router are all placed where the highest speed is needed

-----Main TV, SmartThings, PS4, etc. wired connections

I did everything I could to get our ASUS AC68W to provide better coverage at the other end of the house, but still couldn't get anything but very low signal. In the master bath, on the farthest end from router, wifi would drop-out intermittently.

We have no interfering wifi nearby our house

SOLUTION:

1. New ASUS AC88U router to replace the main router. (AC68W)
-----1.a. It has much better signal range ---> with this upgrade alone, we were able to get middling signal in our bedroom and fewer drop-outs in the master bathroom
-----1.b. This also required signal strength for 2.4 and 5GHz to be at max
Note: I tested signal strength over a week plus to see whether I should even setup ASUS mesh (master and node)

2. Old ASUS AC68U was eventually setup as a node, placed halfway between the main router and the master bedroom
-----2.a. Mid-to-full signal strength everywhere
-----2.b. I was able to accomplish this WHILE lowering the signal output to normal on both routers.

3. I still had to choose whether I wanted to be on 2.4 or 5GHz manually --> no auto shift

4. Soon after I set this up, ASUS came out with a firmware update that combined 2.4 and 5GHz into one SSID, so that now I only see one SSID, [gathermewool], which is awesome!

NOTE: There is some increased latency, since I have equal bandwidth sharing enabled, meaning my fastest connections, which are ethernet-connected directly to my main router, will sometime have to wait for wifi connections farther away, which have to communicate with the main router via the node halfway across the house. This doesn't seem to affect streaming to my 1080p main TV nor my PS4, but I notice some lag when there's a lot of bandwidth being used on the other side of the house (wife streaming 4K and using her laptop at the same time)

FUTURE:

I purchased a long length of CAT6 ethernet cable that I want to rout to the second router, the node. I'm hoping this ethernet connection will significantly reduce latency and boost performance at the farther end of the house even more!
 
A mesh system like Google Wifi or Netgear Orbi will solve all of your problems. Even though they may be overkill, there's not a downside to it. The handoff is seamless, unlike the older routers with an access point attached, and the setup is effortless. I personally have the Google Mesh system with four total points: one main router and three additional nodes attached, and I get signal everywhere in the house and in most of the yard, which was difficult before because it's a large brick Colonial. I have the main router in the center of the house, one in the left upstairs bedroom, one in the garage which is to the left of the main house; and the last on the right side of the house in the family room.
 
95% of readers to this thread haven't the skills to concoct remedies like the ones posted here.
So why not try to help those with little computer hardware skills?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

OVERKILL
The Dragon who sold his Camaro: Analyzing custom router implant
2
Replies
23
Views
814
Rand
OVERKILL
Chinese hacking group APT31 uses mesh of home routers to disguise attacks
Replies
5
Views
383
OVERKILL
john_pifer
Your Choice for Router in 2023
8 9 10
Replies
184
Views
7K
Bottom_Feeder
92saturnsl2
Ubiquiti access points on different subnet / separate from 192.168.1.x
Replies
7
Views
834
OVERKILL
A
Here is a $100 Router Recommendation for the "Average Joe"
Replies
8
Views
2K
nthach
Back
Top