Question WiFi extenders

[Jbuckley32]

Hello all !
This is literally the first time I posted a question so go easy on me..
here are the facts

-I live in a large duplex w 6 other people who probably all use the same WiFi network as me at various times
-The modem/router is located about 20-30 feet away in the furthest unit and there are a few walls inbetween us
-with my situation I am going to be using a lap top to play online games MMO’s it’s a top end laptop w a 1080 in it and 16 g memory so I’m not worried about that but I can’t use a desktop because of lack of room
- wireless does reach me and it’s never really spotty but I’m sure once I start playing ESO and probably Camelot unchained(if it ever comes out!) I will b disappointed by the performance

Which leads to my question.. I see a lot of extenders on line from 20$-160$ and I’m not quite sure what I need or where to place it. I saw one that has an option to plug in a direct Ethernet line and I also saw a few w 2 to 4 antennas.

So what kind of extender should I be looking at? Or certain brand maybe? My budget is kind of tight now that I spent a lot in the lap top but if a more expensive extended is what I need I’ll do it.. otherwise it’s pointless to have this great machine and not have a good enough signal

Thanks !!

 

[bill001g]

Putting a extender in your room is pretty much a waste of time. It will get the same wifi signal as your PC does. Lets say you plugged it into your PC via ethernet all you really did was put the wifi nic in a separate box. Maybe there was someplace in the room you got more signal than the laptop it might help but it is unlikely. If you use the extender in repeater mode you will make your signal worse. So it receives the same level signal as your laptop and then retransmits it into the same radio which causes interference. At a very minimum you lose 50% of your bandwidth but it likely is much worse. You also now have 2 signals that can interfered with rather than 1.

The optimum use of a repeater is to place it 1/2 between the point you get good signal and the point you get bad signals. This is not always possible when the cause is a wall. The optimum place would be with a antenna on each since of the wall which is not really practical.

For games I would look at powerline units. Place one near the router and plug a ethernet cable into it. The second you would place in your room and run a ethernet cable to your laptop. They make powerline units with the remote end having a wifi radio but you really want to avoid any wifi at all when you are playing games. You can not solve the issue of data delays because of retranmisson due to data errors. This causes lag spikes in games. The only real option is to not use wifi in game if it as at all possible.

 

[Jbuckley32]

Assuming that the plug in my room and the utlet where the router is are on the same circuit (not sure if that’s the term) I wil definitely look into power line units.
Thank u for that, I didn’t even consider that as an option

Although worse case scenario, it sounds like I’m in for some laggy gaming. Doesn’t sound like an extender can help me?

 

[bill001g]

A extender should be consider a last option where you consider a garbage wifi connection better than no wifi connection. In your case any direct connection to the router will be better than any repeated signal even if the signal level is lower. The quality of the signal is much more important than anything else for games. Pretty much any other application other than games have very little problem with wifi or even repeated wifi if the bandwidth obtained is still high enough.

A lot of the information on powerline units is very outdated. The newer av2 units have much less issues not being on the same circuit. There are still those rare houses they don't work in but they work far better than the old av200 and even the av500 units.

 

[AtkinsFriendly]

I agree with bill (again). Extenders are last options.

You say your it's never really spotty - are you getting good speeds (consistent to what your paying your ISP for) and latency (say under 60ms)? For the most part, as long as you're meeting that criteria, it doesn't really matter what game you play.


A direct Cat5e cable run from the router to new Access Point closer to your computer will yield best results.