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Before I start, please keep in mind I have absolutely zero clue what I’m doing when it comes to my internet and all this stuff so go easy. We recently moved into a new house which is a two story, double brick and concrete house. Our router is downstairs and we were getting no WiFi upstairs so I bought an orbi system to try and help with that (it has 2 satellites and I believe is a RBK353 dual band wifi 6 system). Set it up on Sunday but ever since, it keeps dropping in and out constantly and saying no internet connection. It’s extremely frustrating as I was really hoping this would solve our crappy wifi connection.
Does anyone have any advice as to how I can possible resolve this? Is it my wifi or is it the orbi system?
4 Replies
paulbhande wrote:
a two story, double brick and concrete house. Our router is downstairs and we were getting no WiFi upstairs
Whatever is causing WiFi to be weak upstairs will also affect the Orbi router communicating with satellites (because that link is over WiFi). If the floor between the ground floor and the upper floor is concrete, that may be a serious problem to overcome.
Do you happen to know anyone living nearby in a similar house? It might be worth a few minutes to ask them, "How did you get WiFi to the upstairs?"
Concrete floors can be a bugger, especially when steel reinforced.
You can create a "fake" wired ethernet connection between a router and the satellites with Powerline Ethernet. This lets you use "wired backhaul" between router and satellites.
It does need a decent mains network, but it is worth a try. Can even be better than a wifi link.
Disclaimer: Just another user with time on their hands.
If you just bought the house and plan on being there for quite a while, investing in some networking in the home will be worth it in the long run.
If it's brick/concrete on the interior as well, you could DIY it or hire someone to run ethernet throughout the home. (have them pull coax, too). Brick/concrete does a great job of blocking wifi signals. You bought an Orbi system that is mesh for more access points. Good thoughts, but its backhaul (the connection between the router and access points) is going to be wireless. And that wireless gets blocked by your home. That type of home is one of the hardest to get rock-solid wireless through.
If you were renting or planning on moving soon, I'd advise powerline or Moca adapters (ethernet over coax) to get you through. But if this is a new buy and something you'll be in the long term, I'd bite the bullet to invest in ethernet run throughout the home. While expensive (much less so if you DIY), it'll help with a lot of dropped wifi and non-existent wifi and be significantly faster. The nice thing, your orbi will work with a wired backhaul and perform significantly better (on that version) with the wired backhaul.
You can use powerline or Moca adapters. I've used moca and like them. I've found they tend to have faster performance than powerline but powerline is more convenient. If you can't run ethernet, you might need to try a mix of things to get it working decent because of the structure of your home.
