Home AP Install advice please

[Vinpat1]

Good Evening
My first post so please go easy on me
Trying to set up 2 APs in my cousins newly renovated house and have an issue.

The Setup
Virgin Media router connect to a TP Link 8 port Gigabit switch. This then has 2 wired Ubiquiti Unifi Lite APs connect to the swtich, one AP in the kitchen the other on the 1st floor.

The Problem
With the swtich off, so just running the router, we get 160mbps, as soon as the switch and the APs are on, the speed drops to a break neck speed of 1.09mbps.

The Confusing Bit
Before he went on holiday 2 weeks ago, everything was running fine, and was etting good speeds when connecting to both APs. Then he swtiched off the APs/Swtich whilst he was away and now have this issue as mentioned above.

The Troubleshooting Part
Done multiple reboots, checked cables, configuration on the router has not been changed before, during or after the issue. Online mentions putting the router unto modem mode but seems like we need another router too.

The Please Help bit
Please help, thank you in advance.

 

[Orcvader]

Unplug everything on the switch. Plug it into the VM hub, and see if that causes the speed to drop. If it doesn't, plug one access point back to the switch, and see if that causes it. If that's also fine, then plug in the other access point. Basically you're trying to see if it's either the switch or one of the APs causing it.

 

[thebandit]

@Vinpat1

Bit confused by the symptoms here, are you saying the Wifi speed drops ? or the internet speed ?

My trouble shooting would be wired first, check the speed from the VM hub, then plug in the switch, connect to that, check the speed again, then plug into the cable for the access point in each location try that. If all that works fine (your wired back haul) start checking the wifi speeds, I guessing this is actually your issue as getting muliple wifi APs working harmoniously is fun.

With the APs off (powered off not just not plugged into the ethernet cables) try the VM box wifi. If that works (with all the wired hardware plugged in ) then plug in an AP and check again (assuming you are also leaving the hub wifi on)

A few notes on multiple Wifi access points,
1, in the 2.4GHz band the only config for 3 wifi points in range of each other (assuming you are leaving the hub wifi on) without channel frequency overlap is setting each individual AP to CH1, 6 and 11 respectively, if you set channels closer they will overlap and interfere with each other.
2, to work effectively the wifi must support roaming, without it if you connect to AP1 and walk away from it, even if you are stood directly under AP2, your device will doggedly stay connected to AP1 if it can. Roaming handles this and passes the device connection over to AP with the strongest signal for the device. Note, not saying this is your issue, but just a general note on what you are trying to achieve, my guess is your setup does not support roaming, the APs and VM hub wont work together and the Ubiquiti APs would need come kind of controller running.

Lastly, yes, if you put the hub into modem only you will need another router.

For point of reference, my home setup is

VM hub (modem only, wifi off) -> TP link router -> TP cloud controller -> TP link switch -> 3x TP link APs set to CH1, 6 and 11.