Question Wi-Fi is terrible at second floor, how to proceed?

[Doctor_Bootleg_404_]

Hi everyone,

I've recently returned to my old folks' home and realized just how poor the Wi-Fi signal is on the second floor. Sometimes, my PC can't even detect the network in the Network & Settings > Network Status menu.

I'm looking for the most affordable and effective way to improve the situation. We already have a Wi-Fi range extender positioned halfway up the stairs between the floors. Would adding another one be a worthwhile investment?

Also, our Wi-Fi infrastructure is quite outdated (Wi-Fi 4, 2.4 GHz band💩) so I'm wondering if I should first pay attention to that.

Thanks in advance for anyone that helps 😊

 

[Lutfij]

You an look at a range extender or if possible a pair of mesh routers. How much do you have in mind budget wise for your networking gear purchase? Where are you located and what is your preferred site for purchase?

 

[bill001g]

Some houses are very good at absorbing signals. Apartments with concrete walls and floors can almost completely block wifi. Older houses tend to be made from much more dense materials and block traffic. Doesn't really matter, there is no magic wifi that works better in these houses. This tends to be why any kind of wifi reviews is worthless. The reviewers house is not going to be the same as yours so you can not make any predictions.

It seems you have already tried a extender and it also seem you have properly placed it. Some people think you put the extender in the remote room which does little good since the extender must be able to get a strong signal from the router and then be able to send a new signal to the remote room.

Now maybe there are some fancy mesh systems that will let you run multiple repeaters. Most do not, they are actually just repeaters like yours with new label on the box that say "mesh".
Without getting real technical as to why most repeaters only talk to the main router so you can not connect a repeater to a repeater.

Newer wifi may or may not work better. Again your house and how it is constructed determines that. The key thing that is different is the ability to use 5ghz and 6ghz radio bands. The issue is the higher the refrequiency the more signal is absorbed. Even the water vapor in the air absorbs these higher signals more. So for most people you get better coverage on 2.4g but again difference in houses make this unpredicatable. The thing that makes this concept messy is there is more bandwidth on 5ghz and 6ghz so it might run faster at some fixed distance. Trying to combine the concept of distance and radio signal levels is abused by the marketing guys so you can never compare.

....doesn't really matter I guess.

Your only solution is some kind of wired solution. You likely would not be asking this question if you have ethernet in the remote rooms. If you can run a ethernet cable upstairs you would then use a old router or even your current extender as a AP to provide remote wifi.

If you have coax wires in near the router and upstairs you can use MoCA adapters to do the same function as a ethernet cable. Many of the modern ones can run full gigabit speed.

The other option is to use powerline networks. Some powerline networks have a remote unit that has a wifi AP built in. In most houses you only get say 130mbps which I suspect is far faster than you currently get using 2.4g wifi. The big problem is powerline is also unpredictable. It works in most houses but there are those stubborn houses where there is something strange with the electrical wires. Make sure you buy it from a place that allows returns and look for units that have 1000 or 2000 number. Like wifi these numbers are marketing fiction you will never get anywhere close to gigabit speeds. If you get 100mbps be very happy.