Router struggling with demmand? (TP-Link Archer VR2800)

[Mart2912]

Hey folks,

So my router seems to be having issues where the WiFi will just randomly stop working, and sometimes this will also effect ethernet as well. If it does, it seems to not respond when you try to connect to it via the IP address so you have to switch it off for around 30 seconds. But it is mostly the Wifi that has this issue. Devices can see the SSID, but can't connect until I reboot the router. The issue can happen 3-4 times a week, which doesn't sound that bad, but Sky Q mini boxes can have a bit of a fit when they can't connect back to the main box.

I've had this issue for a while now and it's now got to the point where it is becoming tiresome.

There are quite a few devices connected, so I am wondering if this router is simply struggling to cope? Or is there some kind of funky setting that may be interfering with something?

Networking is not really my area of expertise, so I generally don't mess around with any router settings. I know that the 5GHz wireless is disabled and it's just running 2.4GHz.

From the top of my head, these are the devices connected to the network:

Sky Q
Sky Q Mini x 2
3 x tablets
3 x phones
1 x laptop
1 x PC (Hardwired)
3 x Amazon Echo
Philips Hue with 6 x LED WiFi enabled bulbs
2 x Wifi enabled timers

I think that covers everything.

The router in question is the TP-Link Archer VR2800.

Not sure what other information would help, but let me know. Cheers!

 

[WJA96]

Your router isn’t struggling to cope, and there is probably nothing wrong apart from the fact that you have all those Internet of Things devices. Sadly, they don’t tend to fit high end wireless chips into those IoT devices so they run slowly. Sometimes stone-age slowly.

Any wireless router (until very recently) has had to run at the speed of the slowest client. That’s your IoT devices.

Your Sky boxes, phones, tablets and laptop can all run at least twice as fast as the IoT devices but they’re being held back. This isn’t usually as big a problem because they can usually all use the 5GHz band. Except you’ve turned that off. So your system is trying to download to lots of devices at the slowest speed possible and it’s just not able to handle the traffic.

So I would suggest turning the 5 GHz band back on, and see how that goes. If it doesn’t get better, come back and we can do some more diagnosis.

 

[Janesy B]

Use the 2.4Ghz band only for IoT stuff, use 5Ghz. I think Sky Q uses a 5Ghz channel for the Q box to communicate with mini boxes so you may have to experiment with 5Ghz channels to get something stable.

 

[Mart2912]

Cheers guys. I'll switch on 5GHz channel and see how it gets on.

Just to add. Why would other devices cause it to slow down as mentioned? Also, I take it I just connect any device compatible to the 5GHz channel?