[SOLVED] My computer keeps losing internet connection despite using extenders ?

[drewmeister11]

I've been having this problem for a while and can't seem to get any answers.

I live in a fairly small apartment with my brother. He set up the modem/router pretty far away (relative to the size of the apartment) and he apparently has no internet trouble at all. For almost a year I didn't have any major internet problems. Sure it was always slow to download stuff but the only time latency annoyed me was while playing MMORPGs, and it's not like those require the fastest connections. However, sometimes around July, the internet started cutting out. Our ISP (Comcast Xfinity) insisted it was the modem and our modem company (Motorola) insisted it was the ISP. The ISP changed some wires and the modem company sent us a replacement, but I still continue to lose my signal.

I wondered if it was because we recently got new neighbors and possibly their wifi signal was interfering with mine since the signal from my brother's wifi was pretty weak here. After all, my laptop works great when sitting next to the router. To fix this I bought a TP-Link RE315 range extender, but that also didn't work. At least, it doesn't work here. I tried it at my parent's house last week and I had no problems with it at all. Yet for some reason at my apartment, it will just lose connection to the internet, or sometimes straight-up disconnect for a moment or two. It doesn't matter if I'm using 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz. Sometimes it drops the connection for a few seconds, sometimes it will go down for hours.

The connection lights on the extender stay solid, and the location is registered as a 'perfect location' according to the app it came with. It seems pretty clear that it's getting a signal, so I don't know why I'm losing a connection. Since the extenders worked at my parent's house I have to assume that it's something to do with the router, even though we replaced it. I've also noticed recently that my Switch no longer can connect to the router from my room despite having no trouble doing so before, and I have to move closer to make it work.

Could this be caused by interference from other wifi signals? Could it be a setting on the router? Is there something wrong with the hardware? At this point I'm considering just buying a new router and modem separately and seeing if that fixes anything.

Also, this may not be related but about 70% of the time I do a Google search it keeps asking me to do a security check, and I my pc gives me messages saying my network has weak security. I can't do much about that since my brother is stubborn about his password, but if I may as well mention it in case it helps.

For reference, my router/modem is a Motorola MG7550 and my extender is a TP-Link RE315

 

[bill001g]

So I assume you made the mistake of placing the extender in the remote room. The extender will get the same crappy signal your end device did and then just repeat the signal making it worse. The proper location is someplace between the main router and the end device where it can get good signal from the main router and still provide strong signal to the remote room.

In addition any form of repeater actually causes interference because it transmits on the same radio as the main router. You are going to lose at least 1/2 your speed and now have 2 signals that neighbors can interfere with.

Since it work good close to the router it has to be the wifi. It is likely a combination of how the house is build, concrete walls for example can almost complete absorb wifi. It can also be lots of interference from neighbors. Many of them like you putting in multiple of these mesh/repeaters so it increases the interferece with each installed. Kinda like turning your stereo up louder because your neighbor is too loud.

Best option is not to use wifi. Look at Moca adapters if you have coax cable in both rooms. Otherwise consider powerline network like the newer av2-1000 or av2-2000. You could then plug the re315 into these unit and have it act as a simple AP to provide wifi or you can plug ethernet directly in if you do not actually need wifi.

 

[drewmeister11]

So I assume you made the mistake of placing the extender in the remote room.

Best option is not to use wifi. Look at Moca adapters if you have coax cable in both rooms. Otherwise consider powerline network like the newer av2-1000 or av2-2000. You could then plug the re315 into these unit and have it act as a simple AP to provide wifi or you can plug ethernet directly in if you do not actually need wifi.

Remote is halfway between router and my device :-/
And question for the Moca adapters, I've been told by multiple people I know that you can only hook the internet up through the one coax outlet that the modem is hooked into. Are you saying that I could hook another router/moca adapter up to the one I have in this room and it would work fine?

 

[bill001g]

Not a router a simple moca adapter.

This is a very popular brand
https://www.amazon.com/goCoax-Ethernet-Bandwidth-existing-Companion/dp/B08XWC4JGB

You would place a splitter on the jack that connect to the modem and hook 1 unit here. The unit I linked actually do not even need a splitter you can just cable the moca device between the wall and the modem. You would then just connect the second moca adapter in the remote room and then hook your pc to the moca via ethernet. Look at the documentation they show pretty good diagrams of the various ways you can hook these up.

Moca is designed to share the same coax wires with your internet modem and not interfere.

 

[gggplaya]

Remote is halfway between router and my device :-/
And question for the Moca adapters, I've been told by multiple people I know that you can only hook the internet up through the one coax outlet that the modem is hooked into. Are you saying that I could hook another router/moca adapter up to the one I have in this room and it would work fine?

Your friends are wrong unfortunately. Any outlet that's connected to your cable company will work with the cable modem. So if you can hook a tv into that outlet to get cable, then your modem can too. There are exceptions like if your house has really old rg-59 cables in some outlets and RG-6 in others. Weird things like that due to outlets being installed in different decades. Some of your cable outlets may be completely dead because someone didn't hook them up to the main splitter.

If you can find the main splitter in your house, make sure it's capable of 5-2000mhz in order for Moca to work. Older cable splitters were only good for about 5-900mhz and won't work with MOCA.