More Internet/Networking trouble

AJQS

AJQS

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Alan
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I'm at the end of my tether now with networking in this house! It should not be this much hassle!

Simply we have the Main house, and we have a granny flat type extension which we let out. The internet is provided by a crappy BT router (Home Hub 3) which can provide wifi around the main house fine, but can't get it beyond the stone walls into the extension, except for the kitchen, which is only 5m away from the router and on a line of sight, and signal is between 5 and 20% there.

To get Wifi into the extension we popped a repeater into the kitchen. Once set up it worked for a couple of years, needing the occasional reset to deal with the router's flaking out every now and then.

That was till a couple of weeks ago, as per my other thread on repeaters, it died. Tried home plugs, didn't work. Got a new repeater, and that has been no end of hassle!

The BT oruter has always been prone to flaking out and needing rebooting at random, but now it's 10x worse. The HH4 has eben binned, the HH3 is back in but it's only marginally more reliable.

The repeater is somehow, however, interfering with all the internet and I don't understand it. I set it up yesterday, and it was working OK until about and hour ago, when in the main house all of a sudden the internet dies. No imnternet connection apparently on my wifi connection, no internet connection on the PC downstairs with LAN connection straight to the router either. Dad however was getting internet through Wifi in the same room as the router!

So, Tried rebooting the router...nothing. Tried accessing the BT home bub from the LAN PC and here's where it gets weird - it would only bring up the Repeaters home page, not the Home Hub. So from here I disconnected the repeater remotely, and all of a sudden we have internet in the main house, but of course none in the extension again!

SO what the hell is going on here, can I do something about it on the current equipment (we have guests tomorrow so could do with getting something working!) and what would be the best long term solution? I'm thinking a new ADSL modem/Router but one with industrial strength wifi and bulletproof reliability, hotel grade as I'm sick and tired of pathetic consumer electronics... Any recommendation there?
 
http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/review/series-20-episode-2-why-wifi-so-bad

They reviewed 3 routers here. One of the cheaper ones was nearly as good as the nighthawk for coverage. TPLink I think as I have the dlink.

I'd check the ip addresses everything is using as it sounds like something is taking the wrong one periodically and cacking things all up. Set the BT router and the repeater to static ones that are outside the range that the BT router gives out but within the same subnet. eg BT router would be 192.168.0.1 and the repeater would be 192.168.0.2 and the IP range the BT router you could set to 192.168.0.10 - 192.168.0.100
 
sure there are no conflicting IP ranges being dealt out by each device?

might be time to dig up the garden and run a couple of lengths of cat5 if wifi is such a pain to be honest.
 


If you let out the granny flat then it might be more sensible to have them on their own network.
I'd bin the repeater and use a wireless router (2) that can connect to your BT homehub (1) as a wireless client*. Then use a second wireless router (3) connected via ethernet to the first wireless as an access point.

If range is an issue, you maybe able to connect better antennas to (1) and (2).

The main benefit of this arrangement is that clients of the home hub can't access clients of the Annex Wi-Fi and vice-versa**
Additionally, as the "repeater" in this arrangement is using your BT Homehub as a wireless client, just like a laptop or netbook etc. then it's much less likely to cause more than it's share interference or congestion



*I don't think many wireless routers have this facility out of the box, but some do. Flashing a router with DD-WRT can give you the capability and that's exactly my current set-up, which will shortly be redundant
**Clients of the Annex Wi-Fi will still be able to access the homehub (gateway) itself, so ensure your admin password for it isn't guessable.
 
Wires are out of the question, as is using another router connected to the homehub, beyond my attention span. Been looking at routers with guest networks, but unsure if they're going to be reliable enough or even powerful enough in the first place.
 
Go down the route of Cloudtrax, you'll need 2 and they will wirelessly mesh. Disable the wireless on the BT Homehub and use Cloudtrax as the sole WiFi provider, it has a second SSID functionality which can also integrate with Purple WiFi (Free and Paid Editions).

This will provide you with legal compliance, bandwidth management and the ability to keep your guests OFF of your network. I've set this up a couple of times now, and had no reliability issues at all, and one of the scenario's is exactly what you are going through.

More than happy to answer any questions you've got on it if you are interested :)
 
Neilc28 said:
Go down the route of Cloudtrax, you'll need 2 and they will wirelessly mesh. Disable the wireless on the BT Homehub and use Cloudtrax as the sole WiFi provider, it has a second SSID functionality which can also integrate with Purple WiFi (Free and Paid Editions).

This will provide you with legal compliance, bandwidth management and the ability to keep your guests OFF of your network. I've set this up a couple of times now, and had no reliability issues at all, and one of the scenario's is exactly what you are going through.

More than happy to answer any questions you've got on it if you are interested :)
Click to expand...

Now that looks interesting...will run it by the boss in the morning.

By the way, having changed the IP range on the router we have so far had stable internet for nearly 12 hours now!
 
Ditch the HH3 and get a decent router.... You get what you pay for.
 
arad85 said:
Ditch the HH3 and get a decent router.... You get what you pay for.
Click to expand...

Actually that's not true!

I was looking through old posts of yours last night to get details of the Asus router you liked (DSL N55U etc), so I could tell my mate.

I went to ebuyer to check prices and it was about £81.

The next model up was about £129 and was slated in the reviews cf. your one.
 
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arad85 said:
Ditch the HH3 and get a decent router.... You get what you pay for.
Click to expand...

Like the Draytek 2860N? By all rights that should be amazing, in reality it's unfortunately not as some features just do not work and others had to wait 3 months for a firmware before it was stable. Even now enabling UPnP causes the router to reboot frequently of it's own accord, and this is seen widespread throughout Draytek's forums.
 
Neilc28 said:
Like the Draytek 2860N? By all rights that should be amazing, in reality it's unfortunately not as some features just do not work and others had to wait 3 months for a firmware before it was stable. Even now enabling UPnP causes the router to reboot frequently of it's own accord, and this is seen widespread throughout Draytek's forums.
Click to expand...
A decent router costs more than the HH3. Just because it is expensive, does not make it decent... ;)
 
Too true, just pointing out that "You get what you pay for" isn't necessarily true. 2860 paperweights anyone? Lol
 
PS. The Asus is a cable router - that is, it doesn't have an ADSL modem in it.
 
arad85 said:
No, the HH3 truly is pants.

This is the one I recommend: http://www.ebuyer.com/363642-asus-r...ual-band-wireless-n450-gigabit-router-rt-n66u

The reviews give it 8.9 on average - which is pretty good in my book. Which are you looking at?
Click to expand...

My post was in relation to "you get what you pay for".

Totally untrue in the case of routers!

The one that is n66u is the ADSL model that is £50 dearer than the N55u you previously recommended and is slated in the reviews.

So money does not a good router make:p
 
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Mikesphotaes said:
My post was in relation to "you get what you pay for".

Totally untrue in the case of routers!
Click to expand...
No... it's true ;)

Mikesphotaes said:
The one that is n66u is the ADSL model that is £50 dearer than the N55u you previously recommended and is slated in the reviews.

So money does not a good router make:p
Click to expand...
So... the N66U is the cable router, the N55U the ADSL - so you have that wrong. ;)

Also, where are the bad reviews? The N55U is here: http://www.ebuyer.com/354171-asus-d...nd-wireless-n300-gigabit-adsl-router-dsl-n55u and averages 7.9 - yes, there are some bad reviews - approximately 1 in every 15, but then almost all will have some bad reviews. The N66U I linked to previously averages 8.9. Both should be far better than the HH (and will definitely be better wi-fi wise).

I tend to recommend the N66U and a separate modem (all the installs I have done over the past 3 or 4 years have been like that) but that's more of a hassle - especially if you are not well versed in setting up network equipment. I generally don't recommend the N55U as I've never used it personally. In fact, the only mention of N55U I can find I've made on the forums is here: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/hdd-caddy.462983/#post-5319300, unless you have been secretly bookmarking my posts so you can prove me wrong :D

As wifi routers the Asus are hard to beat at the price, but if you expect your £80 router to also be your NAS, then you're probably stretching your money too far.....

So... not only do you have your knickers in a twist over which router is which, you're also misrepresenting me. But I won't hold it against you ;) :p

/pedant...
 
arad85 said:
No... it's true ;)

So... the N66U is the cable router, the N55U the ADSL - so you have that wrong. ;)

Also, where are the bad reviews? The N55U is here: http://www.ebuyer.com/354171-asus-d...nd-wireless-n300-gigabit-adsl-router-dsl-n55u and averages 7.9 - yes, there are some bad reviews - approximately 1 in every 15, but then almost all will have some bad reviews. The N66U I linked to previously averages 8.9. Both should be far better than the HH (and will definitely be better wi-fi wise).

I tend to recommend the N66U and a separate modem (all the installs I have done over the past 3 or 4 years have been like that) but that's more of a hassle - especially if you are not well versed in setting up network equipment. I generally don't recommend the N55U as I've never used it personally. In fact, the only mention of N55U I can find I've made on the forums is here: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/hdd-caddy.462983/#post-5319300, unless you have been secretly bookmarking my posts so you can prove me wrong :D

As wifi routers the Asus are hard to beat at the price, but if you expect your £80 router to also be your NAS, then you're probably stretching your money too far.....

So... not only do you have your knickers in a twist over which router is which, you're also misrepresenting me. But I won't hold it against you ;) :p

/pedant...
Click to expand...

Let's see if I can make this a bit clearer.

The N66U is also manufactured as an ADSL router.. note the slating to a 6.3% score and the note the price £128.99.
http://www.ebuyer.com/584637-asus-dsl-n66u-wireless-adsl-modem-90-igy6002u00-2pa0-

Now then the first result in the search engine here (no need for any secret bookmarking needed!)
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/recomend-me-a-router-please.505571/#post-5808438
That's the one I wanted to tell my mate about....£81.30 and 7.9% review score

So both ADSL routers (because mate doesn't have cable) and the reviews show that YOU DO NOT GET WHAT YOU PAY.

No twisted knickers, misrepresentation or even pedantry but I won't hold it against you ;) :p
 
Mikesphotaes said:
No twisted knickers, misrepresentation or even pedantry but I won't hold it against you ;) :p
Click to expand...
Misrepresentation - yes there is. I didn't even know Asus made a DSL-N66U, so I couldn't exactly recommend it could I - so you misrepresented me there ;) By the way, they are not the same thing - the RT-N66U has external aerials for starters (looks like they have been doing a good marketing ploy using the name from a decent and well regarded router and applying it to something else similar). But it doesn't end there - the DSL-N66U also supports VDSL (i.e. infinity) as well as ADSL, so comparing it to the 55 (yes, you found another post I made on the 55) on a like-for-like basis is unfair as it will have a different modem section in. They will also be charging a premium as integrated VDSL modem/routers are not that common.

My advice still stands - go and buy a decent router. Asus make decent routers. The HH3, however, is pants.
 
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