[SOLVED] Old house with thick walls needs wifi coverage

[Nissa Cooper]

Hello, I hope someone can point me in the right direction. We moved into an old house which is L shaped with a central granite fireplace and chimney which blocks wifi signals on both floors. Either end of the L are modern extensions. Our master socket is at one end of the L in an upstairs bedroom, the previous owner used it as an office. He put in an ethernet point connected to the downstairs kitchen at the other end of the L and says he used an Apple Airport (he only uses Apple products, whereas I use MS PCs and Android tablets) there to provide more coverage, (but he took that with him.) I bought a simple Aigital wifi repeater which I plugged in within sight of our Sagem (Plusnet) router and that gave me reasonably good wifi at the other end of the L upstairs. However, I then tried to connect up the repeater to the kitchen ethernet and set it to AP mode. It now ceases to function and I get "not in range", I cannot even re-set it so it works upstairs anymore. It was cheap and cheerful so I just have to put that down to experience and chuck it.
So can anyone suggest a basic router/wifi unit that I can put in the kitchen to give me a signal on the other side of the chimney to my original router, and tell me how easy it is to get them to talk to oneanother. Also, I presume I will lose some speed with a second router?
Many thanks.

 

[bill001g]

First thing to do is make sure you can plug a simple pc into the kitchen and get it to work with your router. You may have some issue with the cabling if this does not work. It really is just a long ethernet patch cable that goes though the walls so it should just work.

After that you need nothing really special. Any router can run as a AP. Many have a feature that makes it run as a AP. Otherwise search how to run my router as a AP, it tends to be trivial but there are youtube videos.

Your repeater should also work as a AP not sure what you did wrong. I would factory reset it and try again.

 

[geofelt]

My son had a similar problem.
He replaced the router with a stronger one.
I can't tell you the make/model that he used.
He researched the issue online, looking for router reviews.
I do think that a good antenna will be most helpful.
Usb dongles are weak.

 

[Nissa Cooper]

First thing to do is make sure you can plug a simple pc into the kitchen and get it to work with your router. You may have some issue with the cabling if this does not work. It really is just a long ethernet patch cable that goes though the walls so it should just work.

After that you need nothing really special. Any router can run as a AP. Many have a feature that makes it run as a AP. Otherwise search how to run my router as a AP, it tends to be trivial but there are youtube videos.

Your repeater should also work as a AP not sure what you did wrong. I would factory reset it and try again.

Thanks Bill, I have re-set (fiddly little button on the side) about 20 times, but each time it says I have a strong signal I still cannot connect to the net. I tell it to forget the repeater each time, but even after resetting (20 sec pressing with a pencil bend double by the wall socket) it remembers it but says there is no internet despite a strong signal. Thinking about getting a Wavlink AC1200, (£25.49 Amazon) as a second router but it's dual band and only my laptop has 5Ghz. so might be a waste.

 

[bill001g]

It is strange that the laptop is only 5g. Most times if they only support a one band it is 2.4g. I don't know if I have seen a router that is 5g only. Likely be more expensive than a dual band one just because it is special.

 

[Nissa Cooper]

OK, so I have bought a Wavlink wifi dual band router to run in tandem with my Sagemcom MNN397 (John Lewis Broadband) modem/router. The previous owner gave me this link https://www.wikihow.com/Connect-One-Router-to-Another-to-Expand-a-Network to show me how to set it up. However, the Sagemcom interface doesn't have any means to configure DHCP, so am I to assume it is on anyway?
Setting up the second router: Next I tackle the Wavlink interface, which gives me 3 options, one of which is Wifi Router - so I take it this is the one I should use?
If I turn off DHCP as per the instructions I cannot alter the second modem's IP address as per (6) as the third set of figures on router one differ from router 2.
I tried altering the IP and then turning off DHCP but this resulted in a warning that there was a conflict when I turned the two modems on.
(7) So should I call the second router SagemcomXXX and use same password? Will they show up as two separate items in the Wireless Network Connection menu?
Please see my original post above to explain what I am trying to achieve.
I need this explained to me in simple terms as I'm in my 60s, and have already wasted 2 days trying to get this system to work for me.
You help would be appreciated. Many thanks.

 

[bill001g]

It is bad when you can't change stuff easily. The main router you want to leave the IP and dhcp alone anyway.

The second router you need to get the dhcp disabled. For the IP lets say the main router is 192.168.1.1 set the second one to 192.168.1.240. After this you plug the LAN port on the second router into the first.

If the second router has the ability to run as a AP or bridge you can use the WAN port. You may or may not have to change the IP and disable the DHCP.

The wifi SSID I would recommend you run it different so you know what device you are connecting to.

 

[MrMoore]

I have this problem at my partner's dads house. I'm looking at the Ubiquiti UnFi solution a couple of AP's and I think it'll solve the issue. Obviously this all depends on the budget.