Associate
- Joined
- 14 May 2026
- Posts
- 3
- Location
- United Kingdom
Hello, first post here!
I have built a home office in my back garden and I'm currently trying to finalise the setup for the internet - but running into some issues!
In my house I have a wireless mesh system, which consists of 3 x Linksys SPNMX57 / AX5400 Routers. The main router where my fibre connects to is in my lounge at the front of the house, one node is upstairs and the third node is in my kitchen at the rear of the house.
The garden office is about 50 feet from the rear of the house and the node in the kitchen. I have connected an an outdoor ethernet cable from the kitchen node (plugged into a LAN port) out into the outdoor office.... here's where the issues begin!
If I connect that ethernet cable directly into a laptop, the internet will connect and work absolutely fine. However, there are occasions when I will want more than one device connected (and ideally wanted WiFi in the office). So I started off by trying to use an old router I had laying around as an access point, this being a tp-link archer c80. I set the router up in 'access mode' and plugged the ethernet cable from the kitchen node into the blue WAN port on the rear of the router. But it doesn't appear to communicate with the kitchen node and apart from on one brief occasion for around 5 minutes I couldn't get any internet from it at all, either by wifi, or by plugging a laptop into the yellow LAN ports on the back. The internet LED on the router now only flashes intermittently and doesn't stay solid green.
So, I thought the router was the issue and purchased a small unmanaged network switch, a tp-link 5-port gigabit switch (LS1005G). The first time I plugged this in out of the box it worked (with one laptop connected)! But since then, I'm in the same position as I was with the archer c80, no internet via the switch when connecting a single laptop. The ethernet cable from the node when first plugged in will blink green as if it is connected, but when a laptop is plugged in it's almost like that device tries to take over?! I've got it to work on perhaps two occasions, but I'm not sure how. But when it was working on one of these occasions, I plugged a second laptop into the switch and the internet dropped out on both.
I've done some research and presumably this is some sort of IP conflict issue, or something similar. I've reached the end of my technical knowhow, for what I thought would be a simple idea - and so any help would be greatly appreciated. In an ideal world I would use the archer c80, and have laptops plugged into that with ethernet cables but still have WiFi available for phones, etc. too.
Many thanks for reading!
I have built a home office in my back garden and I'm currently trying to finalise the setup for the internet - but running into some issues!
In my house I have a wireless mesh system, which consists of 3 x Linksys SPNMX57 / AX5400 Routers. The main router where my fibre connects to is in my lounge at the front of the house, one node is upstairs and the third node is in my kitchen at the rear of the house.
The garden office is about 50 feet from the rear of the house and the node in the kitchen. I have connected an an outdoor ethernet cable from the kitchen node (plugged into a LAN port) out into the outdoor office.... here's where the issues begin!
If I connect that ethernet cable directly into a laptop, the internet will connect and work absolutely fine. However, there are occasions when I will want more than one device connected (and ideally wanted WiFi in the office). So I started off by trying to use an old router I had laying around as an access point, this being a tp-link archer c80. I set the router up in 'access mode' and plugged the ethernet cable from the kitchen node into the blue WAN port on the rear of the router. But it doesn't appear to communicate with the kitchen node and apart from on one brief occasion for around 5 minutes I couldn't get any internet from it at all, either by wifi, or by plugging a laptop into the yellow LAN ports on the back. The internet LED on the router now only flashes intermittently and doesn't stay solid green.
So, I thought the router was the issue and purchased a small unmanaged network switch, a tp-link 5-port gigabit switch (LS1005G). The first time I plugged this in out of the box it worked (with one laptop connected)! But since then, I'm in the same position as I was with the archer c80, no internet via the switch when connecting a single laptop. The ethernet cable from the node when first plugged in will blink green as if it is connected, but when a laptop is plugged in it's almost like that device tries to take over?! I've got it to work on perhaps two occasions, but I'm not sure how. But when it was working on one of these occasions, I plugged a second laptop into the switch and the internet dropped out on both.
I've done some research and presumably this is some sort of IP conflict issue, or something similar. I've reached the end of my technical knowhow, for what I thought would be a simple idea - and so any help would be greatly appreciated. In an ideal world I would use the archer c80, and have laptops plugged into that with ethernet cables but still have WiFi available for phones, etc. too.
Many thanks for reading!
