TP-Link WR841N struggles with 20 wifi clients, why?

[nirajshakya85]

My Office has 20 laptops and they are all connected through Wi-Fi. I purchased TP-Link WR841N router. It was advertised for small home and office use. When it connects to 18 clients, it struggles to ping its default gateway. Why is that?

How can I slove this problem?

 

[kanewolf]

My Office has 20 laptops and they are all connected through Wi-Fi. I purchased TP-Link WR841N router. It was advertised for small home and office use. When it connects to 18 clients, it struggles to ping its default gateway. Why is that?

How can I slove this problem?

Because that is a low end single band WIFI source. 20 devices on 2.4Ghz will fight with each other for radio time. The performance will be terrible. An office should use office grade equipment. Ubiquiti "smoke detector" WIFI access points with a business class router like a Ubiquiti security gateway would be my recommendation. That will also allow you to setup guest WIFI for visitors.

You are trying to use low end home equipment for a job that it was not designed for.

 

[nirajshakya85]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from nirajshakya85 : "What kind of device do I need to set up a wireless network that can handle 40 wifi clients?"

I need a bit of expert advice on setting up a wireless network in my office. What device do I need that can manage 40 wireless clients. I have tired with Belkin AC900 DB router, TP-Link WR841N but they all fail with my requirements. What should I do, please help?

 

[jsmithepa]

The de-facto interpretation of home office=home. Salesmen will always make their products sound more capable than they are.

 

[bill001g]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from nirajshakya85 : "TP-Link WR841N Maximum Client Connection"

How many wireless clients can TP-Link WR841N manage to run smoothly? I heard it can manage up to 10 wireless clients with less latency.

You could have a lot more than 10 clients and the smoothness will be dependent of the clients usage, your ISP if they are accessing the Internet, etc.

You could have a lot more than 10 clients and the smoothness will be dependent of the clients usage, your ISP if they are accessing the Internet, etc.

In the real case, if the router is connected to 10 wifi clients, it struggles to ping its default gateway address.

There are way to many variable to give a blanket answer. There is a huge difference between 10 users trying to watch 4k netflix streams and 10 users browsing simple web pages.

 

[doolittle]

TP-Link WR841N, that is a pretty old N300 with only 10/100 speed ports, I can see it having some problems handling a lot of clients. The Belkin AC900 DB *should* be better since it has gigabit ports and AC900, but after reading reviews there are better choices.

Personally I have had really good luck with TP-Link's AC models, the TP-Link C1200 is a very good basic router with gigabit and AC1200 capability and is currently on sale for $40 so it's a very good budget choice. The Archer A7, as well as the older model the Archer C7, is only slightly more expensive and gives you a bit more bandwith with AC1750.

However for a small business consider a dedicated AP (access point) to handle all your wifi, the Unifi UAP-AC-PRO should handle up to 127 client wifi connections max per-radio (127 on 2G and 127 on 5G, a theoretical max of 254 clients), and their single AP can be easily managed with their phone app. Personally I am using their UAP-AC-LR model on my Fios Quantum router (with the wifi on the router disabled of course), could not be happier with the performance and reliability, and no problems when we have family over to visit (where we can easily hit 15 devices in use at the same time).