Wifi advice

[speedlever]

I just discovered this forum and would appreciate some advice.

I have an old WRT54G v3 running Tomato and for the most part, it's been fine. That being said, the kids have repeatedly complained about dropping signal from time to time and the signal does get pretty weak on the far side of the house. I frequently have signal issues with my GS4/iPad in my bedroom (on the 2nd story) working with the WRT54G which lives on the opposite side of the house on the first floor.

I have the router in the far corner on the bottom floor of the house in a small office along with a wifi printer and connected to my desktop via ethernet. Admittedly, not an ideal location, but convenient for a number of reasons.

We have a range of wifi devices from laptops, tablets, and iPods/iPad (gen1) to iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4 smartphones. I think the only 5GHz capable devices are the smartphones.

I ran a cat6 cable from the router to the opposite side of the house on the first floor and connected it to an old DLink router, but it died and I've never replaced it. But at least I have the cable in place.

All I want to do is extend the wifi so the other side of the house and upstairs will have good coverage. Would I be smart to replace the WRT54G with something like the TP Link C7 v2 and move the WRT54G to the other end of the cat6 cable? I'd like to not spend more than ~$100 if possible.

Or leave the WRT54G where it is and put the the C7 on the other end of the house? Then just turn off DHCP on the C7 and use the same SSID?

Or maybe buy a couple WR1043ND and pair them up? That should keep me close to $100. Or maybe a pair of the dual band WDR3500 or WDR3600?

I'm not hung up on TP Link, but they seem to rank pretty high on the tests here (at least the C7 does). And while I'm reasonably IT savvy, networking is not high on my personal knowledgebase list. I can assign a static IP, etc., so I think I can reasonably setup this system.

 

[htismaqe]

The C7 does have some issues with range on the 2.4Ghz radio. It's really strong with 5Ghz performance though.

If you're looking for 2.4Ghz range, you might want to look elsewhere.

 

[CaptainSTX]

The 54Gs are workhorses but their technology is twelve years old. Because their link rate is at best 54 Mbps at best your wireless throughput on them is no more than half that rate.

Stepping up to newer single band 2.4Ghz using N technology will significantly increase the link rate and perhaps the actual download speeds you can obtain.

I would put a newer router as my my primary router as it probably has a faster processor, more memory and additional features that the 54G doesn't have.

As for assigning the same SSID to both your primary router and your secondary I would recommend against it. For some or most people having different SSIDs allows users to manually connect/select the nearest AP which should have the strongest signal. Many devices are not smart enough to connect to the strongest signal but instead connect to the last AP connected to. Put each AP on its own channel (1,6,11 ) so they do not interfere with each other.

As for picking a device look at the router picker and ratings charts on this site to see standardized testing of equipment. As for reviews even the "best" routers are loved by many but alway hated by a few. Purchase your hardware from someplace you can return it if it won't work for you.

 

[azazel1024]

I'd go a pair of WDR3600, which is what I was using until recently (a pair of them).

You get the whole thing for ~$110 new for the two. Excellent speed and range.

If you have no nearby networks to interfer with yours, my suggestion is setting one on the side of the house where you are most likely to be needing the bandwidth to 40MHz 2.4GHz channel 1 and the other one to 20MHz 2.4GHz channel 11. Same SSID for both. Then there'll be no bandwidth/channel overlap.

If you do have nearby interfering networks, set them both to 20MHz and seperate channels.

I would not reuse an 802.11g access point/router.

If you want alternate firmware, the WDR3600 can run OpenWRT.

 

[microchip]

I just discovered this forum and would appreciate some advice.

I have an old WRT54G v3 running Tomato and for the most part, it's been fine. That being said, the kids have repeatedly complained about dropping signal from time to time and the signal does get pretty weak on the far side of the house. I frequently have signal issues with my GS4/iPad in my bedroom (on the 2nd story) working with the WRT54G which lives on the opposite side of the house on the first floor.

I have the router in the far corner on the bottom floor of the house in a small office along with a wifi printer and connected to my desktop via ethernet. Admittedly, not an ideal location, but convenient for a number of reasons.

We have a range of wifi devices from laptops, tablets, and iPods/iPad (gen1) to iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4 smartphones. I think the only 5GHz capable devices are the smartphones.

I ran a cat6 cable from the router to the opposite side of the house on the first floor and connected it to an old DLink router, but it died and I've never replaced it. But at least I have the cable in place.

All I want to do is extend the wifi so the other side of the house and upstairs will have good coverage. Would I be smart to replace the WRT54G with something like the TP Link C7 v2 and move the WRT54G to the other end of the cat6 cable? I'd like to not spend more than ~$100 if possible.

Or leave the WRT54G where it is and put the the C7 on the other end of the house? Then just turn off DHCP on the C7 and use the same SSID?

Or maybe buy a couple WR1043ND and pair them up? That should keep me close to $100. Or maybe a pair of the dual band WDR3500 or WDR3600?

I'm not hung up on TP Link, but they seem to rank pretty high on the tests here (at least the C7 does). And while I'm reasonably IT savvy, networking is not high on my personal knowledgebase list. I can assign a static IP, etc., so I think I can reasonably setup this system.

The C7 is not recommended if you have Apple devices in your home. See the various threads on Apple issues with the C7 on the TP-Link forums. AFAIK, the problems are still present

 

[speedlever]

Thanks very much for the suggestions! (thought I was automatically subscribed for replies... better check my UserCP page as I've not received any notification of replies).

Good info about the Apple issue with the C7. I'll have to do some more research. But if a pair of dual channel routers will work (for $110-ish), that sounds very attractive.

If the stock firmware will do what I want, I have no need of custom firmware.

I see one recommendation to NOT use the same SSID.. and one to use the same SSID. Can you clarify?

Edit: reading some of the reviews over at NewEgg, there are enough reliability issues to make me rethink TP-Link as an option. I'd really like to use two routers to extend the range, but not if I'm going to potentially have reliability issues.

Would I be better to go with a single $100 router vs 2 $50 routers? It may be 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. But I really don't want to put $200 into a router if I can help it. I'd sure like to have the service and reliability I've had from the old Linksys.

 

[sinshiva]

i like azazel1024's router suggestion, but i agree with captainstx regarding SSID usage, UNLESS those tp-link models have that feature that let's you set a signal threshold at which clients are punted, allowing them to reconnect to a better AP. afaik, it's only in some pretty recent wireless router models. otherwise, until the signal completely dies, the clients will generally hang on to whatever AP they were connected to for dear life

 

[fistv]

$50 router, change it to an access point and plug it in at the other end of the house. Leave the 54g where it is or buy a new router and turn the 54G into an access point and plug that in at the other end of the house. When you turn a router into a dedicated AP put a piece of tape over the WAN port so no one forgets and plugs in a cable by accident. The WRT54G's are beasts, I've been using a 7 year old one for over 3 years now with dd-wrt and other than needing a reboot when it gets swamped by store customers it's been good, fixed that by automating a reboot every hour which clears out the cache and tables.

 

[speedlever]

i like azazel1024's router suggestion, but i agree with captainstx regarding SSID usage, UNLESS those tp-link models have that feature that let's you set a signal threshold at which clients are punted, allowing them to reconnect to a better AP. afaik, it's only in some pretty recent wireless router models. otherwise, until the signal completely dies, the clients will generally hang on to whatever AP they were connected to for dear life

That was my experience while the old DLink was on the end of that cat6 cable. Heh! I was hoping the newer wireless routers might be able to manage themselves in that scenario, but that's probably too much to expect in this class of routers.

$50 router, change it to an access point and plug it in at the other end of the house. Leave the 54g where it is or buy a new router and turn the 54G into an access point and plug that in at the other end of the house. When you turn a router into a dedicated AP put a piece of tape over the WAN port so no one forgets and plugs in a cable by accident. The WRT54G's are beasts, I've been using a 7 year old one for over 3 years now with dd-wrt and other than needing a reboot when it gets swamped by store customers it's been good, fixed that by automating a reboot every hour which clears out the cache and tables.

Argh. Reading reviews (just like anything else I research before I buy) provides user experience from great to awful. I've even begun thinking of just biting the bullet and getting the NetGear R7000 Nighthawk, but then reading Heather Parker's very well informed review puts me back to square one. That being said, I read that using DD-WRTK3 solves the issues. But still....
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/A3S38DWRX1/?tag=snbforums-20

If I went that route, I would likely reconfigure the old WRT54G as an AP and stick it on the end of that cable.... unless the new router was THAT much better and provided ample coverage throughout the house from it's decidedly remote and poor location.

Why is it that when I expect black and white, I always get varying shades of gray!

 

[fistv]

Why is it that when I expect black and white, I always get varying shades of gray!

Nothing worth doing is ever easy. I replaced my 12 year old SMC7008ABR with a WRT1900AC, so far it has done nicely but at $250 I expect it to. Sounds like an easy thing but I lost 4 ports, the smc had 8, so I had to buy a switch, that switch is about 2" too deep for my wall rack, so now I need to buy a new wall rack for my patch panel, cable modem, wrt1900 and a new shelf for the modem and wrt to sit on, now that I have all those extra ports I'm pulling more cable in the basement to the rack so I can eliminate 2 5 port netgear switchs and I may pull 5 more from the entertainment center so I can eliminate another netgear switch and so it goes.

 

[speedlever]

Ha ha. So true. We need to replace our slide-in range, but somehow that translates into a total kitchen remodel.... which is not in the budget these days.

But that's a subject for another website.

 

[htismaqe]

Nothing worth doing is ever easy. I replaced my 12 year old SMC7008ABR with a WRT1900AC, so far it has done nicely but at $250 I expect it to. Sounds like an easy thing but I lost 4 ports, the smc had 8, so I had to buy a switch, that switch is about 2" too deep for my wall rack, so now I need to buy a new wall rack for my patch panel, cable modem, wrt1900 and a new shelf for the modem and wrt to sit on, now that I have all those extra ports I'm pulling more cable in the basement to the rack so I can eliminate 2 5 port netgear switchs and I may pull 5 more from the entertainment center so I can eliminate another netgear switch and so it goes.

ROFL...timely...

I had a HDD fail in my Linkstation NAS. I was able to get it back up and running and luckily I had a full backup on an external USB drive but I discovered that the Buffalo software only backs up, it doesn't RESTORE.

I decided it was time to buy a new NAS since this one has an integrated internal drive and is about 4 years old.

I got a new QNAP and lo and behold, it's like 1/16 of an inch too tall to fit on the bottom shelf of my cabinet. I spent the morning modifying my cabinet and repositioning the middle shelf so that the new NAS will fit with about an inch of clearance above it.

 

[speedlever]

Well here is the direction I'm leaning right now. Get either an Asus RT-n66u or an Asus RT-ac66u to replace the venerable WRT54G and move the WRT54G to the end of the cable as an AP.

Based on the comparator here, the n66u has better 2.4GHz throughput than the ac66u. OTOH, the ac66u has better 5GHz throughput than the n66u. Since only our smartphones can use the 5GHz band, the n66u at ~$120 seems the better buy than the ~$150 ac66u, unless there are other mitigating factors I have not considered.

And reading this thread (which devolved into a discussion about operating temps rather than real world performance):
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=7978
I'm not sure I really learned anything.... else I missed the important parts that would impact my usage.

One friend recommended the EnGenius EAP600 AP:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833168107
but I would really like to have some LAN ports for use with the co-located PS3. While I know it will connect via wifi, I prefer to connect via ethernet cable.

Any thoughts about going with either of the above solutions to extend my wifi coverage?

 

[fistv]

Your new head end router, $120-$150, an EAP 600ap, $169 then add a 5 port GB switch ~$40 on the far end to plug the AP into vs your new head end router and say a $47 NETGEAR WNR3500L-100NAS on that end point in ap mode gives you your wireless and 4gb ports for a lot less money.
Pretty much the only way I would use a dedicated Access point was if it was for outside, was POE, at least EnGenuis gives you a wall wart but I notice it is PoE ready, all you need is a PoE switch. Cisco charges extra for power for their AP's. Just some thoughts.

 

[speedlever]

Ouch. That's pushing $400. I was aiming for close to $100, if reasonably possible. Thought I could do it using the $120 RT-n66u and repurposing my old wrt54g as the AP. Or $150 max with the ac66u.

 

[fistv]

Ouch. That's pushing $400. I was aiming for close to $100, if reasonably possible. Thought I could do it using the $120 RT-n600u and repurposing my old wrt54g as the AP. Or $150 max with the ac600u.

That's what I would do, new head end router of your choice with GB lan, then put the 54g on the other end as an AP, that will put the 54G lan segment at 10/100 for any wired but you can always replace that at some future point if it bites the big one or you want AC. I like that you can turn a router into an AP and end up with 3 extra wired ports.

 

[speedlever]

Thanks, sounds like it should work well for me.

Any reason to spend the extra for the ac router over the n router? If not, I'll pull the trigger on that n66u.

Order placed. Thanks all for the advice.

 

[Gronnie]

$50 router, change it to an access point and plug it in at the other end of the house. Leave the 54g where it is or buy a new router and turn the 54G into an access point and plug that in at the other end of the house. When you turn a router into a dedicated AP put a piece of tape over the WAN port so no one forgets and plugs in a cable by accident. The WRT54G's are beasts, I've been using a 7 year old one for over 3 years now with dd-wrt and other than needing a reboot when it gets swamped by store customers it's been good, fixed that by automating a reboot every hour which clears out the cache and tables.

That's what I would do, new head end router of your choice with GB lan, then put the 54g on the other end as an AP, that will put the 54G lan segment at 10/100 for any wired but you can always replace that at some future point if it bites the big one or you want AC. I like that you can turn a router into an AP and end up with 3 extra wired ports.

He is running Tomato on the WRT54G. All he needs to do is click a button in the firmware and the WAN port will become a LAN port. He will actually have 4 extra wired ports, and no need to cover WAN port with tape as it will be mapped as a LAN port.

OP, I would set up the new router first and see if you even need an access point. The new router might be able to cover your whole house.

 

[speedlever]

That will be awesome if true. I'll find out next week when the n66u arrives.

I didn't realize that Tomato gives me that option. I'll have to check that out.