router repeater/extend wifi range help needed

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jonnyboy

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Confirmed technophobe here so I am pleading with you to speak straightforwardly lol.
We're having a problem with wifi patchiness in our house.
To keep it brief its an old house with later additions. Very unusual construction which does not help at all.
See the picture I roughly drew:-
extension%20cabling_zpslmyyuo2i.jpg

Basically I have cat 6 cabling to my study which follows a torturous route from the router location - this all works well - it comes into the study through the loft space via a services cupboard that also (now) houses the sky box etc (which I have boosted about the house via an hdmi matrix). Actually there are two cat 6's from the router passing through that cupboard - one to the study, and one to the PS4 in the room next to it.
So I have internet in that cupboard if you know what I mean.

In that cupboard we also have the sky on demand box.
Previous to some recent works we sort of had decent signal - we were using a "Sky router repeater" thing that we got from them, placed in the centre of the dead space - this would pick up the faint router signal and boost it.
We've now done some works near the router which have further blocked transmission - both the works done, and the router location are fixed ie we cannot move/change/undo etc.
Definitely no cables displaced or whatever.

So - have spent the last two weeks moving the little Sky repeater thing to try and grab a good router signal to repeat into the dead zone. No good. In addition, the (newly moved) On demand box in the services cupboard shows it is getting a wifi signal from the router yet is as temperamental as a temperamental thing.

I need to resolve this ASAP as it is doing our head in.
To reiterate - I can't move the original router. I can't knock down the cupboards/walls near it (lol). Can't do Powerline type system due to their being three different ring mains on two separate consumer units.

What I am hoping I can achieve but don't know how - so this is said in my own simplistic way - my ideal solution would be a 2nd router in the services cupboard - fed by the existing cat 6 cable that runs through there to the study - which supplies good wifi in the dead zone - and that I can whack a cat 6 into the back of to feed the study pc etc.

Help !!!!!!

And thanks in advance.
 
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The best result always is via Ethernet. WiFi is great for laptops, but it can't be relied on

Running cables is a bore, but you know it will always work

Nick Froome
 
The best result always is via Ethernet. WiFi is great for laptops, but it can't be relied on

Running cables is a bore, but you know it will always work

Nick Froome

Agree. Cat 5/6 to each room, then a wifi router in each, with same password if need be, for running tablets/phones etc
If you wald round with tablets/phones, it is difficult, and you may get slight lag, when walking between zones though.

Neil
 
I agree Ethernet is best but Powerline is normally pretty decent if you can't easily run cables. We've used it for years on everything that's in a fixed location.
 
Or if you still want to bolster your Wifi, you could upgrade your Router to one with AC. It's up to 1300Mb/s and does beamforming, which uses 3 antennas and actually "points" the beam at you, rather than it just emanating in all directions. So it'll go through walls with ease.

My MBP supports AC, but my router doesn't. My router only supports up to N on 5Ghz, which gives me 450Mb/s. At the far ends of the house, this can go to ~100Mb/s, still 25Mb/s more than my broadband.

So make sure you're using at least N, but if you're upgrading stuff, go to AC. Your client devices might already support it, or can be upgraded to it relatively cheaply.
 
We have similar problem to jonnyboy and answers to my problem may also help him.

Built a garden room & laid 2 x Cat 5e to it.
Power to garden room is from house distribution board, on a separate trip switch.
Garden room is outside of house wi-fi range.

Have previously heard of using an old router plugged into one of the Cat 5e sockets to set up wi-fi but have tried several times with no luck to make it work.

Main house router is BT home hub 4. Old spare routers are Netgear DG834GSPv3 (branded Post Office & probably has their settings in it) and Netgear DG834Gv2

Pointers to an idiots guide on how to make it work would be gratefully received.
 
We have similar problem to jonnyboy and answers to my problem may also help him.

Built a garden room & laid 2 x Cat 5e to it.
Power to garden room is from house distribution board, on a separate trip switch.
Garden room is outside of house wi-fi range.

Have previously heard of using an old router plugged into one of the Cat 5e sockets to set up wi-fi but have tried several times with no luck to make it work.

Main house router is BT home hub 4. Old spare routers are Netgear DG834GSPv3 (branded Post Office & probably has their settings in it) and Netgear DG834Gv2

Pointers to an idiots guide on how to make it work would be gratefully received.

you need to make sure your second wire/router is a cable modem and not s/adsl. ie. you need the WAN port to be ethernet. It should then "just work"

The main router will give your second router its IP details via DHCP over your Cat5e, then have your second router setup to give out its own DHCP ip range and voila it works.
 
Another option for increasing the range is to get a directional (high gain) antenna so that you can concentrate the signal in your chosen direction rather than sending it equally in all directions.
 
Guys

Just to put this to bed, I had also posted over on another forum of which I am a member. One of the guys over there is a wifi installer.
He pointed me in the direction of one of these:-
https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/

It is absolutely brilliant and easy to install. Basically it takes an ethernet feed from your router and turns itself into a wireless access point. All you do then is turn off the wireless feature of your existing router in its settings. The range (for a normally constructed house) is brilliant - he actually dropped past to help me install it, and was telling me how he did one in a massive 15 bedroom house - the one AP covered all the house, the separate outbuildings, the tennis courts and garden, the whole shebang.
In our case we have a problem with construction (too difficult to explain) so we will end up installing a second one to cover the one dead-spot. When you move around the property your wireless device seamlessly transfers from one AP to another from what he says. He's installed in malls, hotels, factories etc.

They're about £75 quid !!!!!!!!!
 
Mine sorted also now with help from markmifsud.
Bought Netgear N300 for just over £20, plugged it in, it set itself up. registered with Netgear & it:bannana: works:bannana::bannana:
 
I recommend using separate DSL router and Wifi Routers. That way, when you move house, change internet providers or they change your modem, your Wifi setup stays intact & unchanged. It also means you can upgrade your WiFi router without disturbing the internet connection

FWIW, I use Virgin / NTL via an Ethernet Virgin modem to a Cisco Ethernet - Ethernet router. The Cisco distributes IP addresses via DHCP with reserved addresses so the kit with unchanging IP addresses (mail server, Mac, printer) can stay on those addresses and don't need fiddling with. If I plug in anything else it picks up an IP address via DHCP for as long as it needs one

The only constant with home networking hardware is that it will fail regularly and -always - inconveniently

Nick Froome
 

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