Please recommend me a new wifi range extender with SH3, virgin?

AMDPower

AMDPower

AMDPower

Soldato
Joined
24 Feb 2004
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Hi all

I currently have a virgin super hub 3 and 100mb internet soon to be upgraded to 200mb. The SH3 is upstairs on the 2nd floor in my room and the wireless signal on floor 1 and ground floor are not great, with the kitchen getting practically nothing. I went and bought a netgear nighthawk EX7300 few months ago and the piece of JUNK is driving me crazy. Constantly loosing connection. I have tried things that I know off even though my knowledge of networks is very limited. I got a replacement from net gear but it does the same thing it keeps dropping connection and has to be turned off and on to work again. I absolutely need a stable condition because I have a aquarium controller that i need to control wirelessly from my room and is fussy about network dropouts and throws all kinds of fits and causes me even more headache. Right now I just want to take a hammer and smash the Netgear range extender and also the aquarium controller.

I don't think its the SH3 as nobody complains about the wireless connection when streaming movies directly to the SH3 view wifi.

could someone please recommend me a Good, Reliable and trouble free wifi extender or whatever that works that is easy to set up wifi . I dont mind paying but I don't want to pay crazy price either but would rather pay for stability and connection.

Could someone please help me choose as its a mine field out there, ideally i would like to get something that another SH3 virgin owner has bought and has had good success with.

My budget is from £100-£200 but would consider something less as long it meets my criteria

thanks you all

forgot to mention, Dont buy the netgear EX7300 junk, you will regret it.
 
I know this likely wont help much but the way I run the network in my house (old, brick walls etc), is to have 2 tplink routers at opposite ends of the house, both are connected via cat5e cable. Both routers run openwrt firmware and both run separate non overlapping wireless channels but with the same SSID, the cat5e link keeps them stable and means no reduction in speed like a wifi bridge would. Have you thought about a solution like that? (I had a similar problem to you with a wifi printer which wouldn't reconnect to the network when I only had one access point, drove me bonkers.)

Edit: The reason I suggest connecting them by cable is that you avoid having to have the extender in a place which has decent signal in its self which might have been the cause of your woes.
 
If you want stability then range extenders are not the way to go as they have to cope with the wifi connections from both it to the router, and it to the other devices. Run a cable down to the ground floor possible somewhere central to the house, then stick an access point at the other end. A Unifi AC lite will do the job and can be found for under £90. The AC LR model offers better range and can be found for around £120 odd.
 
If your house has good electrical wiring you might also consider doing the wired link using powerline networking, mileage could vary as upstairs and downstairs would likely be on different ring mains, but it might save you running cable. If you have a crimp tool then flat cat5e is also available which is easy to tuck under the edge of a carpet.
 
Thank you all for all the advice, i really appreciate it.

Pulseammo said:
I know this likely wont help much but the way I run the network in my house (old, brick walls etc), is to have 2 tplink routers at opposite ends of the house, both are connected via cat5e cable. Both routers run openwrt firmware and both run separate non overlapping wireless channels but with the same SSID, the cat5e link keeps them stable and means no reduction in speed like a wifi bridge would. Have you thought about a solution like that? (I had a similar problem to you with a wifi printer which wouldn't reconnect to the network when I only had one access point, drove me bonkers.)

Edit: The reason I suggest connecting them by cable is that you avoid having to have the extender in a place which has decent signal in its self which might have been the cause of your woes.
Click to expand...

I really wanted to avoid drawing a cable down to the living room but it would seem that this would be the best solution. I am assuming your setup works like this. Your SH3 is in modem mode, one tplink router connects to SH3 and that becomes the router and the second router is in a access point mode? Do you get seamless transition between wifi if a device if going from range of one router to another router?

Pulseammo said:
If your house has good electrical wiring you might also consider doing the wired link using powerline networking, mileage could vary as upstairs and downstairs would likely be on different ring mains, but it might save you running cable. If you have a crimp tool then flat cat5e is also available which is easy to tuck under the edge of a carpet.
Click to expand...

I tried some of those powerline adaptors and would prefer to stay away from them as the speed was not great with them, i suppose as a last resort kind of option maybe but would prefer not to right now. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

scorchedbee said:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/replace-or-add-to-virgin-superhub.18809297/

My thread may help

Ended up with the superhub in modem mode and put the TPLink VR900 v2 in router mode. Brilliant and easy
Click to expand...

I dont think one router would be enough for my whole house, so would require possibly two of these devices. I am assuming its possible to run the TPlink also as access point mode and have both wifi from superhub and TPlink?

sorry for the basic question, I am not very good at networking.
 
AMDPower said:
I really wanted to avoid drawing a cable down to the living room but it would seem that this would be the best solution. I am assuming your setup works like this. Your SH3 is in modem mode, one tplink router connects to SH3 and that becomes the router and the second router is in a access point mode? Do you get seamless transition between wifi if a device if going from range of one router to another router?
Click to expand...

You've pretty much got it, I use 2 routers, but one is really a glorified switch with a wireless access point (I just bought it because it was cheap and would run the firmware). It's been a while since I set it up but I think I followed this guide here: https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/recipes/dumbap

I have an SH2 (Modem mode) -> TP-Link TL-WDR3600 v1 (Router/AP) <- Wired Ethernet Bridge -> TP-Link TL-WR1043N/ND v1 (Switch/AP mode)

I have wired and wireless devices connected on both the routers.

Your question about the seamless AP roaming - it's unfortunately not seamless. I don't find I need that functionality though as I don't use anything that would require it, when I go out of range one AP my phone will drop wireless and reconnect automatically since the other AP has the same SSID and password... this might not work out so well for you if the signal strength is still so-so from the wrong access point. For my static devices this is never an issue though, the printer remains connected to the same wireless AP closest to it, as does the TV - those devices don't move.

I think if you want completely seamless AP roaming you need to enable 802.11r but I've never had the need. It's mainly needed if you do stuff like streaming of voip calls while you move around the house. If your old wireless range extender was connected using WDS (Wireless Distribution System) I believe that can provide that functionality too, but using such a mode requires identical chipsets in both APs.

Google suggests 802.11r isn't without its issues, but I might give it a whirl this weekend and report back.
 
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Thank you very much all for all the help and suggestions, I really appreciate the help

Pulseammo said:
You've pretty much got it, I use 2 routers, but one is really a glorified switch with a wireless access point (I just bought it because it was cheap and would run the firmware). It's been a while since I set it up but I think I followed this guide here: https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/recipes/dumbap

I have an SH2 (Modem mode) -> TP-Link TL-WDR3600 v1 (Router/AP) <- Wired Ethernet Bridge -> TP-Link TL-WR1043N/ND v1 (Switch/AP mode)

I have wired and wireless devices connected on both the routers.

Your question about the seamless AP roaming - it's unfortunately not seamless. I don't find I need that functionality though as I don't use anything that would require it, when I go out of range one AP my phone will drop wireless and reconnect automatically since the other AP has the same SSID and password... this might not work out so well for you if the signal strength is still so-so from the wrong access point. For my static devices this is never an issue though, the printer remains connected to the same wireless AP closest to it, as does the TV - those devices don't move.

I think if you want completely seamless AP roaming you need to enable 802.11r but I've never had the need. It's mainly needed if you do stuff like streaming of voip calls while you move around the house. If your old wireless range extender was connected using WDS (Wireless Distribution System) I believe that can provide that functionality too, but using such a mode requires identical chipsets in both APs.

Google suggests 802.11r isn't without its issues, but I might give it a whirl this weekend and report back.
Click to expand...

Thank you for taking the time to help me and write all that, it makes things very clear now. I am going to think about this a little but this seems like an excellent solution if i can get it to work like you have, so I may decide to go with this.

I do have a question please, i did not want to run another cable downstairs from upstairs because the space under my door is full. I already have one cable going down to living room but that is for the tv/computer in there. I was thinking of using this cable but. I wanted to attach a netgear5 port switch to it and using one for the modem to put that into router mode and i can still connect the tv and computer. Could this work also?

thanks for the help guys
 
If you wanted to keep the SuperHub 3 as a router, i.e. not modem mode, then you could have a setup where the superhub supplies wifi to downstairs and also cabled connections (from its inbuilt switch) to the TV and living room computer. A third cable comes off the superhub's switch (I'm guessing this is your current cable?) and goes upstairs to another access point/switch (like the openwrt device I run), which can then supply wired and wireless connections to the upstairs.

Remember, if you buy another router to use as a Switch/AP with a third party firmware like OpenWRT as I'm suggesting you get to use all of it's functionality, the cabled ethernet switch will still let you connect computers as well as provide Wifi, unlike a wifi range extender which prolly has no integrated switch.

I hope I've envisaged your design correctly. I've not had a chance to check out 802.11r (the seamless roaming) yet but I suspect it wouldn't work if one of your APs was the SH3, but extending range with a Switch/AP would work fine. If the SH3 is downstairs supplying devices both wired and wifi, with a cable running upstairs, just dump a switch/ap combo unit onto the upstairs end of the cable, use the switch on that to feed the currently connected device and the wifi hopefully gives you the upstairs coverage you need.

You can have basically any design you want as long as it all feeds back to whatever the "main" router is (so either the SH3 or a router hanging directly off of it with SH3 in modem mode). So you could have SH3 (Main router) --> another switch in the middle --> AP/Switch combo for range extension --> Devices for instance. The AP doesn't need to be directly wired to the main router, just as long as there's a path.
 
Pulseammo said:
If you wanted to keep the SuperHub 3 as a router, i.e. not modem mode, then you could have a setup where the superhub supplies wifi to downstairs and also cabled connections (from its inbuilt switch) to the TV and living room computer. A third cable comes off the superhub's switch (I'm guessing this is your current cable?) and goes upstairs to another access point/switch (like the openwrt device I run), which can then supply wired and wireless connections to the upstairs.

Remember, if you buy another router to use as a Switch/AP with a third party firmware like OpenWRT as I'm suggesting you get to use all of it's functionality, the cabled ethernet switch will still let you connect computers as well as provide Wifi, unlike a wifi range extender which prolly has no integrated switch.

I hope I've envisaged your design correctly. I've not had a chance to check out 802.11r (the seamless roaming) yet but I suspect it wouldn't work if one of your APs was the SH3, but extending range with a Switch/AP would work fine. If the SH3 is downstairs supplying devices both wired and wifi, with a cable running upstairs, just dump a switch/ap combo unit onto the upstairs end of the cable, use the switch on that to feed the currently connected device and the wifi hopefully gives you the upstairs coverage you need.

You can have basically any design you want as long as it all feeds back to whatever the "main" router is (so either the SH3 or a router hanging directly off of it with SH3 in modem mode). So you could have SH3 (Main router) --> another switch in the middle --> AP/Switch combo for range extension --> Devices for instance. The AP doesn't need to be directly wired to the main router, just as long as there's a path.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for for writing that for me, i really appreciate all your help. I think i have given up on the idea of seamless roaming that might be a bit outside my technical ability to administer or trouble shoot, would rather have something that works well. Having said that i wonder how these big organisations provide wide spread wifi with seamless transition of wifi? I will give it a try anyhow see if i can get it working but dont want to spend weeks trying to troubleshoot network problems as I am not too good with these things.

I will let you all know in this thread what router/modem network setup combination i go with. Just really need the wireless for the aquarium controller to be stable.

thanks again mate, much appreciated.
 
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