Question Wifi connectivity issues, especially on small devices

[Ueki23]

Just today I had set up a LAN/LAN AP for my housemates upstairs as their internet kept dropping out (and we have concrete walls so I'm assuming it's part of the problem). Instead of getting those power point extenders, we decided to connect an old router to our main router's ethernet port instead. The reason being is that our house is old, ad so is the circuitry so when I had it one time, it didn't work. Now that we have the 2nd router upstairs set up, my small devices (phone, tablet) are having issues connecting and would always drop connection. I should say that our main router is a D-Link DIR 1960 while our 2nd is a Technicolour tg799vac. I want to deduce that it is because they might not be compatible with each other? We considered a D-link mesh extender but as we are all students, we could not afford it. Is there a way we can fix this problem without anyone having to sacrifice internet connection for it? I have searched everywhere to try and find a solution and tried restarting everything but nothing seems to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lutfij]

First thing you can try doing is making sure that both the routers in your household are on the latest firmware updates/versions. Then with the secondary router, set that into AP mode in router's GUI. Then recreate your SSID or it's password to something that the smaller devices haven't logged onto. On second thoughts, if the secondary router allows, try and see if you can set it to repeater mode. It also helps if you could produce a floor plan or a section of the house(architectural talk) you guys live in...and the height at which the router is placed(not to mention where in the household the router is positioned) to see if you can eke out some performance from the new router and do away with the older one.

 

[Ueki23]

Both routers are on the latest firmware. The old router doesn't have an AP or repeater mode as it was a router provided by a phone company so it's like, under their brand. So I've just followed the instructions I've seen online about changing IP and turning DHCP servers off. It's just somehow very unusual now that the people downstairs aren't getting the best connection while the one upstairs (where the old router is) have it better than ever. It's like it reversed itself