5 Things you should know about Wifi

Lord Farquart

Lord Farquart

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Hope this type of Wifi question is allowed here? I have a Netgear ADSL router linked to Telkom. I also have 2 other TP-Link routers connected to the Netgear via UTP. All of htese have the same SSID and security set up. There is also a TP-Link Wifi extender with same setup. All worked well.

Don't know if this is related, but last week I got another TP-Link router that I added to the network. UTP to Netgear and SSID/security same as rest. Somewhere around here things might have gone south.

What is happening is as follows. Two devices, be it laptops, tablets or phones could be right next to each other and both connected to the Wifi. The one will have internet access and the other not. No indication why not at all. No amount of disconnecting/connecting, rebooting, forget/connect will sort it out. Then randomly it would get internet access again. Or another device will lose connection to the internet. Sometimes on a Windows device it will show "one or more protocols missing", but even rebooting will not sort it out.

Any idea what could be the cause of it. I have tried changing the SSID, changing each access point SSID to a unique one, Wifi security to Automatic or WPA2-PSK/AES, channels Automatic or dedicated. None of this makes a difference. I have even taken the "new" router offline, with no change.

All worked well until last Friday. New router added on Thursday, so not quite related. What am I doing wrong and what are good practices when setting up Wifi in your home.

EDIT: Internet on UTP connections work fine. I have 2 PCs and a Roku on UTP. Other Roku on Wifi works fine. Samsung tablets and Samsung phone worst of the lot. HTC and Sony phones iffy, but I get them to work eventually. W7 laptop OK, W10 laptop full of ****. W10 PCs on UTP OK, W10 PC on Wifi mostly OK.
 
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DHCP?

I've experienced some strange network issues caused by a crappy DHCP server...
 
First of all that network is a mess.

Does it work, yes. Should it be allowed to exist in its current state... the poor thing needs to be aborted.

Is this for home or work? If its your home then I assume its a very large house and therefore you have some money to spend. If its for work then you should not be using such a setup.

No matter what the answer is here is your solution.

Remove all those extra routers and extenders. Contact a company (contact me directly and I can get my company to quote) to get you some Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Lite units. From the sounds of it 3 should be enough but I usually like to do a site survey before I deploy.

Then you use the ADSL router as your DCHP server, and create one large roaming wifi network using the UniFi APs and the controller software. I am in fact on my way to CT where I am about to deploy such a setup. Setup time will be 30min max.
 
Home use, yes. Did not think it was such a mess. ADSL router is set up as DHCP, disabled on other devices. Other routers (LTE) are used as Wifi access points. One extender to service a dead spot.

House is not that large, not by my neighbour's standards anyway. But it does seem tricky to get good coverage all over. Only have 3 cable points(UTP) it the house where I can place the access points.

Gonna factory reset all tonight, make sure that latest revisions are on them and that setup is correct. Maybe it is worth getting advice from you and maybe a quote. I am getting frustrated with this at the moment.
 
Lord Farquart said:
Home use, yes. Did not think it was such a mess. ADSL router is set up as DHCP, disabled on other devices. Other routers (LTE) are used as Wifi access points. One extender to service a dead spot.

House is not that large, not by my neighbour's standards anyway. But it does seem tricky to get good coverage all over. Only have 3 cable points(UTP) it the house where I can place the access points.

Gonna factory reset all tonight, make sure that latest revisions are on them and that setup is correct. Maybe it is worth getting advice from you and maybe a quote. I am getting frustrated with this at the moment.
Click to expand...

We can have you up and running on a beautiful 802.11ac network in less than a day.
 
Necropolis said:
DHCP?

I've experienced some strange network issues caused by a crappy DHCP server...
Click to expand...

Might have been it, thanks. Found one access point which was also had DHCP enabled. So far so good, although the newest device is not back on the network
 
killerbyte said:
We can have you up and running on a beautiful 802.11ac network in less than a day.
Click to expand...

You wanna PM or mail me something about your company? Would seriously consider a proper solution if this fix does not work.
 
Lord Farquart said:
Might have been it, thanks. Found one access point which was also had DHCP enabled. So far so good, although the newest device is not back on the network
Click to expand...

DHCP can cause some lovely issues that are incredibly difficult to track down.
 
killerbyte said:
Contact a company (contact me directly and I can get my company to quote) to get you some Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Lite units. From the sounds of it 3 should be enough but I usually like to do a site survey before I deploy.

Then you use the ADSL router as your DCHP server, and create one large roaming wifi network using the UniFi APs and the controller software. I am in fact on my way to CT where I am about to deploy such a setup. Setup time will be 30min max.
Click to expand...

Ballpark figure for a setup like this?
 
my best guess is that you have a rogue DHCP server on the network.

disconnect everything ( eg only power to each router/wifi), then connect a wired laptop to each to see if it receives an ip from the device.

only one router should give DHCP and thus gateway etc.

also, obviously, verify that all the routers have different addresses (factory default routers mostly have 192.168.0.1 which will clash if connected to each other)
 
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