My home network is in a right mess- can you help?

securityguy

Wireless extenders are a pain in the wotsits. Do you really need one, as compared to getting a router with better wireless performance, relocating the router, running a cable between the router and an access point, or some other solution? Some extenders do work OK --- although they Are Not Cheap, the Apple Airports in "Extend a network" mode work well --- but they're inevitably a compromise.

JulyKnot

It's funny you should say that because I did wonder about a new modem router.

So the situation at the moment:
phones seem to connect fine to both mySSID and mySSIDext

Win 8 laptop can connect to mySSIDext if I forget it and reconnect but won't connect at all to mySSID

win7 laptop at the moment will connect to both mySSID and mySSIDext

win7pc will connect to mySSIDext but not mySSID

I can see the printer's MAC address thanks to mywifiext.net and guess that won't change. Haven't played around with that yet. I first of all want to get all machines happy to connect wirelessly to either mySSID or MySSIDext depending which is nearer. I haven't got there yet.
Any ideas what I can do next?

And any recommendations if I do go down the new modem router road?

bluesnake

often a cheap answer is to extend the phone cable and put the router central in the house, rather than a corner where the line enters. Mine is on the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs and the stairs are central.

securityguy

bluesnake wrote: »

often a cheap answer is to extend the phone cable and put the router central in the house, rather than a corner where the line enters. Mine is on the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs and the stairs are central.

That can work, but if you're a bit marginal for distance from the exchange you can be unlucky and lose an appreciable amount of performance. The twisted pair from the exchange is significantly more tolerant of electrical noise than cheap phone extension wiring, and the punchdown blocks in cheap extension sockets are pretty shoddy.

If that does turn out to be a problem then, given the OP already has a range extender which almost certainly has an ethernet connector on it as well, another solution might be to leave the router where it is, turn off the radio on it, and run an ethernet cable, or use a pair of Powerline adapters, to a centrally located range extender. Indeed, given they're describing a situation where all the devices are using the range extender, it sounds like their layout would be well suited to that. That way, the range extender is just acting as an access point.

JulyKnot

Unfortunately I can't use powerline adapters as different electric ring upstairs and downstairs.

I left the laptop wirelessly connected last night and have come back to the machine to find the no internet again.So frustrating especially when it hasn't been touched. The laptop that was the issue yesterday morning is fine. Just seems this win8 laptop at the moment.

Forgot the network as before and now won't connect back to it.
Am on ethernet again but this is proving to be very annoying.

Rapidly wondering whether to just get another modem router and start from scratch. Netgear 834pn is quite old

zaax

The wifi extender can fight with the router if its too close to the router, what happens if you turn off the extender?

Also the channel might be conjested, how many other routers can you see?

JulyKnot

Well I've rebooted the laptop and tried to connect again and it's worked.

Rebooting the laptop seems to do something so could the problem be machine orientated rather than modem router/ extender orientated? It certainly doesn't like mixing ethernet and wireless I've noticed.


Except that doesn't explain the issue with win 7 laptop yesterday which has been fine ever since.

After reading a thread here last night I even wondered if my Kaspersky trial could be causing an issue as it does update automatically but again that wouldn't explain the issue yesterday with different machine.

I can see mySSID and mySSIDext with good signal and one other poor signal which is likely to be my neighbours' one.

Bit nervous of turning extender off and on again. Extender upstairs in central part of house. Modem router also upstairs but in corner.

zaax

why do you think you need an extender?

JulyKnot

zaax wrote: »

why do you think you need an extender?

To get coverage downstairs. It's placed directly above two main rooms that did not get wifi without it.

To make matters worse, I rebooted to see if I could connect to mySSID rather than mySSID-ext. Got limited connection ie no internet. Would not connect to mtSSID-ext at all ( checked for ages then 'could not connect')

Rebooted again to try to connect. Windows updated for ages and now it can't see any connections at all.
What a mess.

JulyKnot

Ran troubleshooter and it seems wifi adapter had been disabled. Why would that have happened during windows update?
Anyway I'm now back connected wirelessly to the extender again. Won't try connecting to the modem router again as that completely failed.

Could the problem be with this new laptop? But then why the original issue yesterday with a different machine? ( which has been fine ever since)