[SOLVED] Multiple devices connected to one router

[0bened0]

My household is fairly device heavy, what with kids and adults all working from home. We have 4 PCs, 2 laptops, a tablet and a couple of phones all wanting the internet most of the day, and we are having issues with devices being kicked off the network. I have a D-Link DSL-3782 router that was supplied by our ISP (TalkTalk). Connected to it I have 1 pc with a direct ethernet cable; a Netgear GS205 switch to which is attached a further 2 PCs via ethernet cables, plus a TP-Link TL-WR802N nano-router to provide wireless access point for devices that are on the other side of a stone wall from the main router. Wirelessly connected we have 1 PC, 2 phones, 2 laptops (though usually not at the same time), a switch, a Kindle fire and occasionally an old xbox 360. Just describing it I realise it's a bit of a rats nest! We regularly have problems with devices being kicked off the network (both wired and wireless devices) and getting new routers from our ISP hasn't improved things.

Can anyone give any advice on how to improve things? Do I need to invest in a better router, or can I reorganise things to improve the chances of not being kicked all the time? I am no expert in these things, and yet it falls to me to be the house IT support!

All help gladly received.

TIA

 

[bill001g]

All depends on what you mean kicked off. The router itself should be able to handle more than your internet connection. Even very inexpensive routers can pass 1gbit of traffic wan/lan. I doubt your router has any issues keeping up with a DSL connection. Although there is likely some limit on how many devices you can hook up I bet it over 100.

So it depends on if the internet is just really slow or what you mean kicked off. If you are over utilizing the bandwidth you purchase from the ISP you can get many things like intermittent web pages you must reload or similar issues. This the only solution for is to try to cut your usage or buy more bandwidth. If you have devices that for example can not even ping the router IP then you likely have some form of configuation issues. You likely have something like duplicate IP.

In general you design is fine and should work well.

 

[SamirD]

This sounds like an isp issue. Run packetlosstest.com and post the results. We can go from there.

 

[0bened0]

All depends on what you mean kicked off. The router itself should be able to handle more than your internet connection. Even very inexpensive routers can pass 1gbit of traffic wan/lan. I doubt your router has any issues keeping up with a DSL connection. Although there is likely some limit on how many devices you can hook up I bet it over 100.

So it depends on if the internet is just really slow or what you mean kicked off. If you are over utilizing the bandwidth you purchase from the ISP you can get many things like intermittent web pages you must reload or similar issues. This the only solution for is to try to cut your usage or buy more bandwidth. If you have devices that for example can not even ping the router IP then you likely have some form of configuation issues. You likely have something like duplicate IP.

In general you design is fine and should work well.

Devices will just suddenly say they are not connected to any network after happily working for a random amount of time. I have read that cheaper routers wont be happy with more than 5 devices connected to them (whether this is just wireless devices or wired as well, I don't know)

 

[0bened0]

This sounds like an isp issue. Run packetlosstest.com and post the results. We can go from there.

I had a go and it returned 0% packet loss. We've had our line tested dozens of times by our ISP and had BT engineers have a look too, but no fault is ever found.

 

[bill001g]

What message do you actually get it is far different if for example the ethernet port gets a red x on it than if your browser gives you a error.

I would open some cmd windows and let constant ping commands run to your router IP and to 8.8.8.8. When you get a message see if either of these fail. Use the IPCONFIG /all command if you get loss on the router ip. If that works but the 8.8.8.8 does not the internet could have dropped. If both work then you have something else that is not a true network outage.

 

[SamirD]

Devices will just suddenly say they are not connected to any network after happily working for a random amount of time. I have read that cheaper routers wont be happy with more than 5 devices connected to them (whether this is just wireless devices or wired as well, I don't know)

Yes, this can happen with routers that aren't designed to handle a lot of wireless. The way you can know this for sure is to reduce the number of wireless devices and see if the problem goes away.

If this doesn't solve it and you still have drops on the wired connection, the router could be defective and the isp should swap it.