Please help me build a good home network.

[grimreaper1014]

Hi guys,

I am trying to build a good home network that will supply internet access to around seven devices. Those devices are my gaming desktop, two smart tv's, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, and two laptops. I have two wireless routers. One is a RT-N66U and the other is a R6300v2. The R6300v2 has been giving me hell ever since I got it. When it losses connection it will not reconnect to the internet no matter what I do. The only way to get it to reconnect is by hard resetting to factory defaults. Therefore, I have been using the RT-N66U instead of it. I have included a diagram of the layout of my house. It shows the location of all the devices. The problem I am having is I can't get the wireless to reach the two bedrooms farthest from the router reliably. My son has non stop issues when playing his XBox 360 wireless from his bedroom. The Xbox 360 is only about 35ft from the router. I would connect it with a LAN cable but I don't really want a 50 ft. LAN cable running down the hallway. I do have a LAN cable running into the room with the PS4 which is my room. Therefore, what I am looking for is some advice on how I can setup my home network to supply a good connection to all my computers and devices without having to run cables everywhere. Please let me know what I can do fellas.

Thanks,
Rocky

 

[MJMcMahon]

Rocky -

I can think of a couple of solutions...the question is whether you need to use your existing equipment or whether you've got a budget to address the issues? My first impulse is to setup the R6300 in the central bedroom as a wireless repeater. The thing that makes me hesitant is the issues you've been having with it. Nothing like a flaky device to increase the tension in the house.

If you have a bit of budget, you have a couple of options:

1.) Move the wireless router from it's current position in the living room to your bedroom. That will likely increase the signal to your son's bedroom and may resolve his connectivity issues.

2.) Alternatively, you may want to consider one of the Powerline Ethernet adapters. You could use that to provide a ethernet drop in your son's room and bypass wireless entirely.

Let me know your thoughts and if you have any questions...I'm pretty sure we can noodle up a solution.

Mike

 

[grimreaper1014]

MJMcMahon,

Thanks a lot for your response. Really I could do either. I am looking to build a network that is going to be stable and problem free. I was thinking the same thing about using the R6300v2 as a repeater. I actually was messing around with it last night trying to set it up. I'm not sure I did it correctly though. When I scanned for wireless networks on my son's laptop it was showing two networks for each 2.5GHz and 5GHz with the same names. However, the R6300v2's networks had no security. I don't think I set it up right. My understanding is if it was setup properly as a repeater I should just see the original 2.5GHz and 5GHz network of the RT-N66U and the R6300v2 should use the same wireless password as the RT-N66U. I ended up ditching that idea when I realized I couldn't figure it out. Then, I set the R6300v2 as a wireless media bridge and connected it to the Xbox 360 via a LAN cable. However, the Xbox 360 kept yapping about the NAT being set to moderate. I couldn't figure out why it was doing that.

Your recommendation on putting the RT-N66U in my room is an repellent idea. That would cut down on the need for long LAN cables running all over the house plus at least the PS4 would still have a wired connection which seams to be the flakiest device when it comes to wireless next being the Xbox 360. I kept thinking about moving the RT-N66U into the hallway but then I would of had more LAN cables running under the hallway carpet. It never crossed my mind to just put it in the bedroom for some reason. I'm gonna do that today. If the Xbox's connection still turns out to be flaky do that Powerline adapters work pretty good? If so maybe I will pick one of them up just for it. That way both gaming devices will be on wired connections. Another thing I was thinking about is if I could get one of those access points that mount to the ceiling in the middle of the hallway and possibly a Powerline adapter for the Xbox 360 in my sons room. Sounds like the first step would be to move the RT-N66U to my room and see how things work out. The biggest problem for me is I don't have any experience setting up access points, repeaters, bridges etc.

Thanks again,
Rocky

Update Feb 26th
Well, I ended up putting the R6300v2 in access point mode. Then, I put it in my bedroom and connected it to the current LAN cabled I had in there. Now I am able to use wireless or wired connections in my room and have 2.5GHz wireless and 5GHz wireless in the other two bedrooms. At first I ran into some problems because everything I found online says you plug the LAN cabled from router 1 to router 2's (access point) LAN port. This worked alright for my Laptops and PS4 but the Xbox 360 kept yacking about NAT issues, ICMP, and just plain old didn't want to connect to the internet. Then, I removed the LAN cabled from the LAN port on the access point and plugged it into the WAN port instead and all is good. Thanks again for all your help. I really appreciate it.