Routers- Recommendations?

S

Sir BoD

Well-Known Forumite
I'm with Plusnet, who do me proud, and use a Netgear WNR1000v3, which has worked fine in my house for a number of years. However, I have just recently started to try and stream music on my tablet in the garage and whilst it works in the main, I have to place the tablet high up and in a very awkward to reach position and even then, I have the odd drop outs. I've toyed with the idea of getting a powerline extender, but I thought that I may as well 'fix it' at source rather than stretch out a weak signal.

My question is, what basic, but improved routers are there out there that may improve my signal over longer distances? Cheers.
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
How far away? We used powering adapters to good effect for our garage. We've laid a cable and that's not performed any better.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
As Lucy says we need to know distance and construction type in between. A few plasterboard walls and you can just get a better router, if its an old building though it can be impossible. I use a set of powerline adapters to reach my shed, where I have another cheap router for both wifi and wired.

If you want hardware recommendations I'm happy to help, just let me know the distance it needs to reach and how many walls (and what type) its going through. I'm playing with a new router myself actually, just plugged it in before I left for work so can't tell how useful it is til I get home. Its one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B015DYYM4M/ref=pe_2024851_128800921_em_1p_0_ti
 
S

Sir BoD

Well-Known Forumite
How far away? It's right at the bottom of me garden :) I don't know, I'm no good with spacial awareness. If I tipped my house on it's side and rolled it over, it would be about 2 and a half times that. It is an old Victorian house, single brick, but the router is in line of sight of the garage via the dining room window. Cheers both.
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
You could always hard wire it. We had a hundred metres to cover and that's meant it's not transmitting well (plus I had to push the cable through polypipe so could have kinked it). Sounds you have about 30 metres so a cable could do the job. I don't know about which routers to use anymore as I have become less geek proficient since living with the OH.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I have a similar distance to cover, well maybe a bit more, and I gave up on wifi. Even putting a repeater in the attic right near the edge of the house wouldn't work well enough, although this was 6 years ago and tech has improved. As I had run armoured cable to get power to the shed I just put a powerline on that where it joins the house then used the router from the attic in the shed. You can also get all in one solutions where the powerline for the far end is also a wireless access point, something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL...qid=1461142905&sr=1-2&keywords=powerline+wifi
 
S

Sir BoD

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
I have a similar distance to cover, well maybe a bit more, and I gave up on wifi. Even putting a repeater in the attic right near the edge of the house wouldn't work well enough, although this was 6 years ago and tech has improved. As I had run armoured cable to get power to the shed I just put a powerline on that where it joins the house then used the router from the attic in the shed. You can also get all in one solutions where the powerline for the far end is also a wireless access point, something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL...qid=1461142905&sr=1-2&keywords=powerline+wifi
Click to expand...
I already have power to my garage but am not too sure on what circuit it runs to / from. I have a sneaky suspicion that it runs into my kitchen extension via the circuit near my fridge. Anyway, cheers @tek-monkey and @Lucy , I'll reinvestigate.
 
db

db

#chaplife
the wifi connection from my virgin superhub seems a bit cuffy.. various "hot deals" websites have recommended the asus rt-n66u, which apparently drops to around £60 now and again on amazon, so i was planning on buying one when it hits that price point..

yay or nay, in your opinion, oh mighty @tek-monkey? part of me thinks it might be a bit overkill for my needs, but the other part of me thinks i should just buy a decent one to start with and hopefully i won't have to worry about it for many years.. i have a lot of wireless devices in the house - 2 iphones, ipad, xbox, sky box, nowtv boxes, IP cam in the little un's room, visitors' devices - so i'd like something that can handle them all simultaneously without having a fit..
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I haven't used a free router in years, I got a nice one about 5 years back and stuck with it regardless of who my ISP is. You tend to find that the free ones always crap out after a few connections, and are never that strong anyway. You getting any blank spots at all, or just dropping connections? What is your house made of? Pretty sure its a new build, in which case you won't have issue with poor signals in most cases.

Which router do you have? Pretty sure the new superhub is AC and supposed to be OK? Could be worth asking for an upgrade?
 
db

db

#chaplife
tek-monkey said:
I haven't used a free router in years, I got a nice one about 5 years back and stuck with it regardless of who my ISP is. You tend to find that the free ones always crap out after a few connections, and are never that strong anyway. You getting any blank spots at all, or just dropping connections?
Click to expand...

bit of a dead spot in the downstairs loo, and one part of the conservatory.. it's more the general wifi performance that's doing my swede in - the connection seems to drop, occasionally need to reboot the router, etc..

tek-monkey said:
What is your house made of? Pretty sure its a new build, in which case you won't have issue with poor signals in most cases.
Click to expand...

used to be - i've now moved away from the commoners and live south of the BMW garage :rich:

no idea what the house is made of.. house stuff? lego bricks? it was built in the 70s, and as far as i can tell is pretty solid..

tek-monkey said:
Which router do you have? Pretty sure the new superhub is AC and supposed to be OK? Could be worth asking for an upgrade?
Click to expand...

a white superhub, v3.0 i think.. it's ok, and i get 50mpbs no prob's, but the wifi connection seems a bit unreliable - IP camera freezes, remote desktop freezes, etc..

i've got an old linksys router in the garage - might dig that out and see if it's an improvement before i shell out for that fancy new asus one..
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
There's lots of foil-laminated insulation boards out there these days - I wonder about what they might do to radio signals?

Therma-TP10-TW50-TW55-TF70-corner.aspx
 
Glam

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
We have a couple of plug in thingys that the youngest uses. 1 is plugged into the socket in my bedroom and the other is in the wall socket in his. God knows how they work, but they do. My pc is on the ethernet cable, his is wireless.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
If you can use wires it is nearly always better than wireless, even if you just use wires to the next wireless point! Unfortunately my spare kit got used a few weeks ago for a job, otherwise I'd have lent you some powerline adapters to see how you got on :(
 
United57

United57

Well-Known Forumite
If you decide to run cable between 2 buildings make sure you do it correctly. If there is one thing to attract lightning it is network cabling. If you do cable you will require suppressors at each end.
 
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