Throughput issues after moving RT-N66U to basement?

[shrike4242]

I needed to move my router from where it was semi-in the middle of the ground floor of my house to the basement on one side of the house (against one of the concrete foundation walls) though the same side of the house that the router was originally at. It moved about 8 linear feet away from where multiple laptops are, as well as from the ground floor to the basement (another 8 linear foot drop, so maybe 11 feet direct line of sight). Both my 5GHz and 2.4 Ghz througputs dropped more than a bit, down to the high two-digit speeds (90Mbps) or the lower 100's (108Mbps - 120Mbps). Anyone have any suggestions for increasing performance?

Right now, I'm running the ASUS .260 FW release, though thinking strongly about moving to the most recent Merlin FW due to lots of people saying it's quite a bit better than the stock ASUS FW. Laptops are one floor above the router (8 feet or so) as well as at the other end of the house, as well as about 10 feet above the routers in question.

 

[lfbb]

Right now, I'm running the ASUS .260 FW release, though thinking strongly about moving to the most recent Merlin FW due to lots of people saying it's quite a bit better than the stock ASUS FW.

That's true, some people describe the 260 stock wireless driver performance as 'horrible'!

- lfbb

 

[RogerSC]

I needed to move my router from where it was semi-in the middle of the ground floor of my house to the basement on one side of the house (against one of the concrete foundation walls) though the same side of the house that the router was originally at. It moved about 8 linear feet away from where multiple laptops are, as well as from the ground floor to the basement (another 8 linear foot drop, so maybe 11 feet direct line of sight). Both my 5GHz and 2.4 Ghz througputs dropped more than a bit, down to the high two-digit speeds (90Mbps) or the lower 100's (108Mbps - 120Mbps). Anyone have any suggestions for increasing performance?

Right now, I'm running the ASUS .260 FW release, though thinking strongly about moving to the most recent Merlin FW due to lots of people saying it's quite a bit better than the stock ASUS FW. Laptops are one floor above the router (8 feet or so) as well as at the other end of the house, as well as about 10 feet above the routers in question.

Yes, I'd move to Merlin 246.20 first, and see what happens with that.

Also, if there's any way that you can get a wireless Access Point on the ground floor of your house, hard-wired to your router in the basement, that would really help you for the 2.4GHz. band and especially the 5GHz band. In case you didn't know, generally speaking an Access Point (AP) is either a router configured as an AP or an actual wireless AP, and pretty much any old wireless router can be configured as an AP. Don't forget that either powerline networking or MoCA can act as pseudo-hardwired connection for an AP. If you can run a real ethernet cable from your basement router to your ground floor that would be best, but you may not be able to do that. Even an ethernet bridge would work for connecting the ground floor AP, if necessary. The AP should provide full-speed (as fast as it will go) wireless to the rest of your house.

 

[shrike4242]

That's true, some people describe the 260 stock wireless driver performance as 'horrible'!

- lfbb

I had been fine with .260 (was running .246 without issues and went to .254 without issues as well) though started to have random issues in the last few days.

Yes, I'd move to Merlin 246.20 first, and see what happens with that.

Also, if there's any way that you can get a wireless Access Point on the ground floor of your house, hard-wired to your router in the basement, that would really help you for the 2.4GHz. band and especially the 5GHz band. In case you didn't know, generally speaking an Access Point (AP) is either a router configured as an AP or an actual wireless AP, and pretty much any old wireless router can be configured as an AP. Don't forget that either powerline networking or MoCA can act as pseudo-hardwired connection for an AP. If you can run a real ethernet cable from your basement router to your ground floor that would be best, but you may not be able to do that. Even an ethernet bridge would work for connecting the ground floor AP, if necessary. The AP should provide full-speed (as fast as it will go) wireless to the rest of your house.

I'm hoping that the swap to Merlin .246.20 will be what fixes the issue. I can't imagine that being one floor up and within 10 feet of the router will be this type of issue with connectivity.

I've had very bad luck with powerline networking the multiple times I've tried it at my house (entertainment center to router and BD player w/o WiFi to router) with Netgear and Zyxel gear in different cases. Either had very bad throughput (Netgear 200MBit) or equipment flakiness (Zyxel). Might be worth another try if it came down to it. The location where my router is currently at is right by my electrical box with a free AC outlet right off of it, and the location where the AP/repeater would should also have a free AC jack to work with.

Hard wiring an AP to the first floor isn't an easy option in my current environment. The powerline to a AP elsewhere or repeater elsewhere might be an option if it came down to it.

I have MoCA on my home network, though as it's between five Tivos that do a lot of transfers and streaming, I'd rather not go down that route unless I have to.

Hopefully the Merlin FW will fix it and it'll be much better than the current situation.

 

[nubyOz]

Hi,

Often the actual orientation of all three axis for router (antennae) and client also plays a major role. EXperiment. In mu case haveing the client laptop sideways not facing the router made a major improvements. Moving the router down moves router and client out of the same 'donut' plane.

Cheers

 

[RogerSC]

I had been fine with .260 (was running .246 without issues and went to .254 without issues as well) though started to have random issues in the last few days.

I'm hoping that the swap to Merlin .246.20 will be what fixes the issue. I can't imagine that being one floor up and within 10 feet of the router will be this type of issue with connectivity.

I've had very bad luck with powerline networking the multiple times I've tried it at my house (entertainment center to router and BD player w/o WiFi to router) with Netgear and Zyxel gear in different cases. Either had very bad throughput (Netgear 200MBit) or equipment flakiness (Zyxel). Might be worth another try if it came down to it. The location where my router is currently at is right by my electrical box with a free AC outlet right off of it, and the location where the AP/repeater would should also have a free AC jack to work with.

Hard wiring an AP to the first floor isn't an easy option in my current environment. The powerline to a AP elsewhere or repeater elsewhere might be an option if it came down to it.

I have MoCA on my home network, though as it's between five Tivos that do a lot of transfers and streaming, I'd rather not go down that route unless I have to.

Hopefully the Merlin FW will fix it and it'll be much better than the current situation.

Having to go between floors can have quite a pronounced effect on the 5GHz. band, which was mostly what the AP comments were directed at, also affects the 2.4GHz. band but to a lesser extent. I hope that you get your problems taken care of without an AP, but wanted to mention it in case you didn't end up where you'd like to be.

 

[shrike4242]

Hi,

Often the actual orientation of all three axis for router (antennae) and client also plays a major role. EXperiment. In mu case haveing the client laptop sideways not facing the router made a major improvements. Moving the router down moves router and client out of the same 'donut' plane.

Cheers

The antennae on the router are pointed straight up which i how it's been since it's been taken out of the box. I can certainly "point" the antennae towards the route to see if that helps.

Having to go between floors can have quite a pronounced effect on the 5GHz. band, which was mostly what the AP comments were directed at, also affects the 2.4GHz. band but to a lesser extent. I hope that you get your problems taken care of without an AP, but wanted to mention it in case you didn't end up where you'd like to be.

Swapping over to the Merlin firmware didn't make changes at the moment. Time to go see if there's something in my config that might be causing the issue, as throughput continues to be an issue with the router in the basement.

 

[nubyOz]

The antennae on the router are pointed straight up which i how it's been since it's been taken out of the box. I can certainly "point" the antennae towards the route to see if that helps.



Swapping over to the Merlin firmware didn't make changes at the moment. Time to go see if there's something in my config that might be causing the issue, as throughput continues to be an issue with the router in the basement.

Trying to illustrate what I mean.

Antenna in centre, maximum, transmission goes sideways
=====|||========||
.......Router.........Client
Router and client antennae are parallel. Excellent

If the router is in the cellar it is more like
..........................||
........................Client


=====|||====== << donut, maximum transmission, not pointing at client
.......Router

The maximum plane of the 'donut' is not heading towards the client.


Try pint antenna parallel to client, something like this
..........................||
........................Client
................./
............../ << maximum dount is always 90degree to antenna
.........\\\ << antenna on angle
.......Router

Hope it makes sense

 

[shrike4242]

I made some antenna adjustments and didn't see much change in wireless speed. I switched from 5GHz to 2.4Ghz and had a noticeable increase in speed, at least at the moment.

 

[RMerlin]

Keep in mind that 5 GHz will always have a shorter range (therefore a sharper drop in performance as the range increases) than 2.4 GHz, due to the fact it's using higher radio frequencies.