Routers & Other Networking Stuff

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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The remote guys? Mesh from the base. They plug in to the wall and have a magnetic antenna connected to them, which is actually really cool to play with. So like if you have a huge dog or knock it with a vacuum it just snaps at the magnet and nothing actually breaks. But the connection is wireless to the router. It forms a mesh network so you can go like .. . .

Remote < = > Router < => Remote

or

Router < = > Remote < = > Remote

etc...

As long as they can see each other they communicate and form a transparent network that your devices roam through.

There's nothing advanced here. You aren't going to DD-WRT it or custom firmware, this is like the evolution of plug-n-play give me some wireless in my house. But I'm like 6 hours in. Give me some time and I'll find something to bitch about.
Have to have line of sight? Very interesting. It looks cool at least. Good stuff for the wife.

I'd think having to have LOS would be a hindrance for most common house hold setups?
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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I have 4 stories (3 floors and basement) about 3500 square feet approx 30x30 i need to cover in a wood frame house in suburban neighborhood.

Right now my cable comes in to the garage on first floor into a d-link dir-655 with wireless off and I have that hardwired to a netgear nighthawk which is doing the wireless on the second floor.

My stuff disconnects randomly and I think the d-link is just a piece of shit but I think if I just do the nighthawk in the garage i'm going to lose a lot of signal as it has a concrete floor and is on the edge of the house.

I have wired connections to most of the rooms from the control panel in the garage.

Any suggestions?
 

Arative

Vyemm Raider
2,996
4,613
I've been looking at Google wifi, they use mesh technology for coverage in large homes. For 3500 sq home, it'd probably be 3 devices for $299. But since it just came out I have been waiting for reviews before pulling the trigger.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
37,961
14,508
I have 4 stories (3 floors and basement) about 3500 square feet approx 30x30 i need to cover in a wood frame house in suburban neighborhood.

Right now my cable comes in to the garage on first floor into a d-link dir-655 with wireless off and I have that hardwired to a netgear nighthawk which is doing the wireless on the second floor.

My stuff disconnects randomly and I think the d-link is just a piece of shit but I think if I just do the nighthawk in the garage i'm going to lose a lot of signal as it has a concrete floor and is on the edge of the house.

I have wired connections to most of the rooms from the control panel in the garage.

Any suggestions?
The dlink is one of the best routers of all time.

When you say disconnected is it just WiFi or entire signal?
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Just wifi i think. I'll update firmware on the nighthawk but i don't think i can get into it without direct plugin.

I can't get into the dlink either because it needs a reset, it seems to have a problem with that, surprised to hear it is well regarded.

But iirc we were having similar wifi trouble when it was just the dlink.
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
6,029
5,915
Well, if it's just wifi, you've eliminated the dlink, since you're not using it for wireless.

Are you running dd-wrt or similar on either box? You might want to schedule a timed reboot if so. They're known to leak memory here and there, more or less depending on the build you're running.

Also, why can't you get to the netgear without direct plug-in? You should be able to flash it from anywhere on your network unless you're hiding it behind something for security purposes and are being paranoid.
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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What do I type in address bar to get to it? i can only find gateway.

No ddwrt on either.

I agree i would think it would eliminate the dlink but this happened when dlink was on wifi and this is why i changed the setup to include nighthawk.
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
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The netgear would be your gateway on any wireless client. Look for that address and http/https to it.

If you're routing both wired and wireless through the netgear, I wouldn't. I would use the dlink as a wired gateway in that setup.
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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I'm just using netgear for wireless and dkink for wired but the last time i connected to gateway via wifi it went to d link. they both won't have the same ip would they?
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
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Brain fart, sorry. The wireless client gateway will be the same as the wired one if they both share the same LAN.

Next time you plug in to the netgear, find its IP and write it down, you should be able to use that to get to it from anywhere on your network.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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14,508
Picasso you running anything else in the house at 2.4GHz?

My WiFi kept going out before and I tracked it to a wireless phone in the house still operating at 2.4GHz. Everytime it rang Internet went down
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
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Also, microwave ovens interrupt the 2.4GHz spectrum. You wouldn't figure that would matter, but you'd be surprised.
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Picasso you running anything else in the house at 2.4GHz?

My WiFi kept going out before and I tracked it to a wireless phone in the house still operating at 2.4GHz. Everytime it rang Internet went down

No phones, we do have a microwave. i have noticed my neighbors signal strength is just as good as mine and there is 400ft 50kw radio tower about 300 ft away but I would think something like that would cause continuous problems.

I'm going to oust the d link, move the nighthawk to the garage and use cat5 to basement to a switch for computer, tv, and will add a repeaters via ethernet if necessary.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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No phones, we do have a microwave. i have noticed my neighbors signal strength is just as good as mine and there is 400ft 50kw radio tower about 300 ft away but I would think something like that would cause continuous problems.

I'm going to oust the d link, move the nighthawk to the garage and use cat5 to basement to a switch for computer, tv, and will add a repeaters via ethernet if necessary.
Typical fucking IT client doesn't let people fix it
 
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Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Typical fucking IT client doesn't let people fix it

Well I gathered from the microwave deal that wifi is inherently shitty so I'm going to go wired everywhere i can and eliminate additional sources of potential issue from the equation eg dual routers.

I request all feedback on proposed plan.
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
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2.4GHz is inherently shitty, yes, but it's rare that you can't get around its cons with appropriate repeaters/antennae/secondary devices. The inherent shittiness is the reason that 5GHz happened, but that also effectively cuts your max range in half, so there are issues with that, too.

A purely wired router connected to a wireless router is not at all likely to be an issue. Even if you broadcast on both of them, they'll generally play nice, although your devices would probably be a bit confused if you aren't using WDS or some other mesh.

If you're losing wireless access only at irregular intervals, and you can't pinpoint the reason, it's most likely interference from some other device. You have two choices. You either wire everything (assuming it isn't something simple, like your microwave), or you go get a 5GHz router and use that, because the likelihood of interference in the 5GHz band is much lower. Your coverage area will be half the size, though, so YMMV.

Or, it's a broken wireless router, but you've said that you've had this problem with two separate devices, so I'd bank on interference.

FWIW, I use two 5GHz APs at my place (basement + 2 floors, roughly ~4k sq ft incl basement) and I use the 5GHz band. It works fine with two routers, both wired, not repeating, on the same SSID/channels. I rarely use the 2.4GHz band for my phone/computers, but some other devices in the house (i.e. Nest thermostat) do and there is no issue there either. The basement router is a Cisco Aironet connected directly to an Asus RT-N66U that is not broadcasting wireless, so my setup is pretty much exactly the same as yours. The second wireless AP is in my wife's office on the second floor. I have cat6 running through the house and one of the endpoints is in that room. Everything works fine.
 
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Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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I will try the 5ghz band on the nighthawk, i think it can do both.

Even if i do find the source and it is a microwave or something, how could i do anything about it?
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
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You can try changing the 2.4GHz channel and see if that works. Not all devices impede the entire spectrum. Our microwave at our old place didn't seem to interfere with channel 11 on 2.4GHz, so I switched to that and everything was fine. Again, YMMV.
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
6,029
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Before you change anything else, give that a try and see if it improves anything. Normally, you'd want to use some app to check the saturation in your area and pick a channel based on that. 11 happened to work best for me.

Just in case your router doesn't tell you this, you want to pick 1, 6 or 11. Don't use anything else for 2.4GHz.