Weird WIFI dead spot

[Alfisti]

Just wondering if there are tech types here that can solve this one.

My router/modem is in my basement, in a corner. I know, not good. I have a mesh system of pods that yields good signal strength throughout the house except for one spot. Here's the odd thing, the dead spot is right there, in the basement, just 30 feet away with only one wall between the router and the dead spot. I have tried multiple devices and they all struggle but the location is where our media centre is, so TV and playstation basically, but all devices I have tried there get very poor signal.

Now, between the router and the wall separating the rooms, is a fridge and freezer, can these be impacting the signal?

I have tried placing a pod between the router and the dead zone but because I am so close to the router it keep pulling directly from that rather than using the pod and i cannot manually force it to grab the pod.

Any ideas?

[Our03z4]

Easy fix. Direct wire connect to the pod. That's what I did on mine. All of my computers and TVs are connected this way. I use six Deco pods and it works perfect. I even pick up my net two houses away.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by Our03z4

Easy fix. Direct wire connect to the pod. That's what I did on mine. All of my computers and TVs are connected this way. I use six Deco pods and it works perfect. I even pick up my net two houses away.

So plug a pod in behind the media unit, if signal is good then direct wire? Not sure that works as the how will the pod get good signal?

[stevenc]

Basements are weird and often have heavy walls between rooms. Consider using ethernet over powerline adapter. Allows you to send high speed internet through the powerlines in the house. Just plug one adapter into the router and wall socket and then put the other adapter into a wall socket by the media center. You will now have a nice wired internet connection by the media center. (Dont plug into power strips, plug the adapters directly into a wall socket)


https://amzn.to/3AYs66g

[bosstones]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Just wondering if there are tech types here that can solve this one.

My router/modem is in my basement, in a corner. I know, not good. I have a mesh system of pods that yields good signal strength throughout the house except for one spot. Here's the odd thing, the dead spot is right there, in the basement, just 30 feet away with only one wall between the router and the dead spot. I have tried multiple devices and they all struggle but the location is where our media centre is, so TV and playstation basically, but all devices I have tried there get very poor signal.

Now, between the router and the wall separating the rooms, is a fridge and freezer, can these be impacting the signal?

I have tried placing a pod between the router and the dead zone but because I am so close to the router it keep pulling directly from that rather than using the pod and i cannot manually force it to grab the pod.

Any ideas?

The fridge and freezer certainly won't help.

Have you used an wifi signal app to see if there is a precipitous drop in signal (vice gradual)? I'm sure there are multiple but I use WiFi Analyzer.

What else can you say about the basement? Low ceilings? Lots of HVAC ducting, copper pipe, etc... in/around the dead spot? I-beams and/oretal support posts?

You have good signal on the 1st floor above the dead spot? Or is there a repeater there?

[Our03z4]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

So plug a pod in behind the media unit, if signal is good then direct wire? Not sure that works as the how will the pod get good signal?

Yes, direct wire right into the pod. This will get rid of the issue with it pulling from the other. Try this 1st to save money. Mesh system can be flakey.

Like another poster said the signal over wire works too but either way you have to direct wire into a booster or pod. Sometimes you can also signal boost to a certain device, mine will direct more energy to what I deem needs it.

Also try turning it to 5g if it's set only on 2.4ghz. Most devices need 2.4 but it will help boost the signal to the other pods.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by stevenc

Just plug one adapter into the router and wall socket and then put the other adapter into a wall socket by the media center. You will now have a nice wired internet connection by the media center. (Dont plug into power strips, plug the adapters directly into a wall socket)

https://amzn.to/3AYs66g

This is really interesting, will go that route if other things don't work.

Originally Posted by bosstones

The fridge and freezer certainly won't help.

Have you used an wifi signal app to see if there is a precipitous drop in signal (vice gradual)? I'm sure there are multiple but I use WiFi Analyzer.

What else can you say about the basement? Low ceilings? Lots of HVAC ducting, copper pipe, etc... in/around the dead spot? I-beams and/oretal support posts?

You have good signal on the 1st floor above the dead spot? Or is there a repeater there?

I am 90% sure the walls are just drywall. But yeah low ceilings, ducting etc, all that shit you mention. I have good coverage through the house but yeah using repeaters.

Originally Posted by Our03z4

Yes, direct wire right into the pod. This will get rid of the issue with it pulling from the other. Try this 1st to save money. Mesh system can be flakey.

Also try turning it to 5g if it's set only on 2.4ghz. Most devices need 2.4 but it will help boost the signal to the other pods.

For direct wire to pod to work I need to get a good signal to the pod, which I won't because it needs to be where the dead zone is. There's no neat way for me to wire to the pod where it has good signal unfortunately.

Yep tried both 2.4 and 5Ghz to no avail.

[zx10guy]

Not understanding fully what your issue is with the wireless signal. Are you saying client/host devices such as your phone, laptop, etc are not connecting to a pod that is part of your mesh wireless system in that area of the basement? Or are you saying the pod is not getting a good connection to the wireless backhaul that is part of the mesh system you're using?

Why do you have the wireless function of your router active? If the pods are positioned correctly and with the appropriate number, you should turn off the wireless function of your router. Is the wireless router broadcasting the same SSID you have configured on pods in your wireless mesh system? If so, that's another problem and you're seeing the classic reason why I always advise people to use a unified wireless system to prevent roaming problems. With your wireless router still running as a wireless AP that is not part of the management system of your wireless mesh system and assuming you have the same SSID configured on both, you have two independent wireless systems stomping over each other. I don't care what anyone says about wireless clients, they're not good at doing proper selection of which AP to associate with. So you're going to get exactly the weird bad behavior you're seeing where client devices are not connecting to the best AP available.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Not understanding fully what your issue is with the wireless signal. Are you saying client/host devices such as your phone, laptop, etc are not connecting to a pod that is part of your mesh wireless system in that area of the basement? Or are you saying the pod is not getting a good connection to the wireless backhaul that is part of the mesh system you're using?

Why do you have the wireless function of your router active? If the pods are positioned correctly and with the appropriate number, you should turn off the wireless function of your router. Is the wireless router broadcasting the same SSID you have configured on pods in your wireless mesh system? If so, that's another problem and you're seeing the classic reason why I always advise people to use a unified wireless system to prevent roaming problems. With your wireless router still running as a wireless AP that is not part of the management system of your wireless mesh system and assuming you have the same SSID configured on both, you have two independent wireless systems stomping over each other. I don't care what anyone says about wireless clients, they're not good at doing proper selection of which AP to associate with. So you're going to get exactly the weird bad behavior you're seeing where client devices are not connecting to the best AP available.

OK this is interesting stuff.

First to clarify the issue. I have the router in a dark, lonely and somewhat crowded part of the basement, not ideal I know. Yes, i am still using the router itself to pump out signal, had NO IDEA I could turn that off and just have it talk to the pods. I did not have a pod in the basement, never needed one, but recently, the past several weeks, I am down to sub 5mbs and sometimes with drops, as my devices cannot connect to the router due to a weak signal in the media centre section of the basement. This media centre is 30 feet from the router so signal should be very strong, there's a wall, fridge, freezer etc between the devices and the router.

Last night i grabbed a POD we rarely use and placed it on the router side of the wall in the basement, it seemed to have good signal but I cannot manually force the devices to grab a specific pod. This is resolved, of course, if i can turn the router's wifi off and just have it send signal to the pods.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

OK this is interesting stuff.

First to clarify the issue. I have the router in a dark, lonely and somewhat crowded part of the basement, not ideal I know. Yes, i am still using the router itself to pump out signal, had NO IDEA I could turn that off and just have it talk to the pods. I did not have a pod in the basement, never needed one, but recently, the past several weeks, I am down to sub 5mbs and sometimes with drops, as my devices cannot connect to the router due to a weak signal in the media centre section of the basement. This media centre is 30 feet from the router so signal should be very strong, there's a wall, fridge, freezer etc between the devices and the router.

Last night i grabbed a POD we rarely use and placed it on the router side of the wall in the basement, it seemed to have good signal but I cannot manually force the devices to grab a specific pod. This is resolved, of course, if i can turn the router's wifi off and just have it send signal to the pods.

Yes, you need to log in to the router's web admin page. Under the wireless configuration section, there should be an option to turn off the wireless radio.

As to the router sending a wireless signal to the pods, that's not what is happening. I'm sure one of the pods is connected to an Ethernet cable which is probably connected to one of the LAN ports of your router. At a basic level, the communication between devices can be looked at us speaking English to each other. For most networks, this would be TCP/IP. How we talk to each other can be looked at as me having a conversation with you over a cell phone. We can also talk on a land line phone. Both are transport mediums for which our English communication is being carried. This is the same as what is happening on your network. The wireless network can be viewed as the cell phones in the aforementioned example. And the Ethernet/wired network can be viewed as us talking on a land line.

Does this make things a bit more clear about networking basics?

[Alfisti]

It does yeah except the bit about the pods being hard wired. I can 100% assure you they are not, they receive signal from the router and boost it. It's working for but for the one corner where my precious PS4 is.

So I just checked the wall in the basement, rock solid besser block not drywall, that's my issue surely?

[zx10guy]

Then you're using a repeater/booster. Those are pure junk and you should throw that $hit in the trash. Using any of those devices is not creating a mesh network. The repeater acts as a wireless client connected to the wireless router. As such it adds to the network congestion as it itself is a wireless client. Wireless networks operate in half duplex which means only ONE wireless device can talk on the RF air space at any given time including the wireless router. So if the repeater is transmitting data to the wireless router, the wireless router and all of your wireless devices has to wait till the repeater is done transmitting. This creates congestion in the form of latency. In addition, any device connected to the repeater is going to transmit data that is half of the throughput of the connection the repeater has with the wireless router. So if for example the repeater is able to connect to the wireless router at 144 Mbps, the connected devices to the repeater will only have up to 72 Mbps of performance regardless of what the device is reporting as their connection speed.

If you want to spread coverage properly in your home, get a real unified wireless system. For home use, these would be Eero, Google WiFi, Ubiquiti, Linksys Velop, Netgear Orbi to name a few. Many use Ubiquiti is it's more business grade equipment that won't break the bank.

[Alfisti]

Good news is i suspected this was a garbage set up so I didn't buy anything, i rented from the ISP for a bit

Appreciate your advice, is there one, reasonably affordable product you could recommend that is not spying on me? Note the most I can get to my home is 50MBS, anything else requires serious investment from the ISP until fibre comes along and i just cannot deal with their BS TBH so I just live with 50mbs.

[zx10guy]

Then the setup you have may be a wireless mesh system. But I certainly wouldn't trust that you're getting the best performance you can for the money.

Not sure what affordable is for you. But the ones I listed above with respect to Google WiFi, Eero, Linksys Velop, and Netgear Orbi are targeted for the home market. I haven't priced any of those out as I'm running a business grade wireless system in my home. But I think they go for around $200 which will get you two pods. One of them will plug into the LAN port of your router which will act as the wired gateway for the wireless mesh system. The other pod can be placed anywhere you need coverage. The pods will communicate over a dedicated wireless backhaul on the 5GHz band. If you can run an Ethernet cable to the other pod, that would be better over using the wireless backhaul. Both pods will operate in unison adjusting RF output so they're not stomping over each other and on different channels.

[Our03z4]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

OK this is interesting stuff.

First to clarify the issue. I have the router in a dark, lonely and somewhat crowded part of the basement, not ideal I know. Yes, i am still using the router itself to pump out signal, had NO IDEA I could turn that off and just have it talk to the pods. I did not have a pod in the basement, never needed one, but recently, the past several weeks, I am down to sub 5mbs and sometimes with drops, as my devices cannot connect to the router due to a weak signal in the media centre section of the basement. This media centre is 30 feet from the router so signal should be very strong, there's a wall, fridge, freezer etc between the devices and the router.

Last night i grabbed a POD we rarely use and placed it on the router side of the wall in the basement, it seemed to have good signal but I cannot manually force the devices to grab a specific pod. This is resolved, of course, if i can turn the router's wifi off and just have it send signal to the pods.

That's why you just need to plug the devices into that pod you tried. It will keep the device from trying to grab signals. Just give it a go and see what happens. Less WiFi device the better, it will reduce WiFi network traffic and speed it up.

[Alfisti]

I can't, it's in the next room. And no, i can't fish it without cutting several holes in the ceiling and dry wall.

[Redd]

Look at your 'mesh' pods and give us the part numbers. Easy to check if it's a mesh or a repeater.

Not all mesh are built the same. My ISP gave me a free mesh setup (Huawei) which turned out to be worst than the normal AP it replaced. 3 mesh points had worse coverage than the previous AP, with random signal drops. Tossed it and replaced it with a TP-Link Deco M9 Plus mesh.

The Deco is amazing! So much easier to use, much much much better performance and coverage than the Huawei mesh and original AP. The Deco app is also super user friendly. With the app you can force each client to use only a specific pod, which would solve your problem. If you have a Deco system, try the app.

[Alfisti]

The pods are a Plume product, model 2S79203E90.

SO I moved that pod to right by the media unit and be damnded I am getting 38MBS, if I plug it into the PS4 I get 45mbs. So I am not sure if plugging it in is making any real difference and I am also not sure if the space was just a "good reception" night so will test more tonight.

Thanks for the tips though, appreciated.