Wired backhaul and modem on same switch not working

Hi everyone, 

 

 

We have all cables (fibre access point and wires to several rooms) all coming out in our basement. Since we don't need wifi there, I wanted to connect the modem  as well as the room-wires to an unmanaged switch, and then set up the router and satellietes in various rooms via ethernet backhaul.

 

The setup is like this: 

• Fibre optical cable -> Fibre modem -> switch A
• Room ethernet cables -> switch A
• Room 1 -> Orbi Router
• Room 2 -> Orbi Satellite 1
• Room 3 -> Orbi Satellite 2

 

However, this doesn't seem to work reliably:

The Orbi routrer only is getting a connection to the internet as long as nothign else is connected to the switch. As soon as I have satellites connected, the Orbi router doesn't get any conncetion to the internet when behind this switch. If connected directly to the modem, the Orbi router works immediately. 

 

Right now, the only 2 solutions seem to be:

• manually connect the Orbi router only, let is establish an internet connection, then connect the satellies (this will not survive a power outage and/or router reboot)
• put the router in the basement and buy another satellite, as the coverage is not enough otherwise. = Waste of money.

 

Could the switch be the bad boy? Would it make sense to try this with another switch? 

 

Would the following setup be any better? 

• Fibre optical cable -> Fibre modem -> switch A
• Room 1 cable -> switch A
• Room 2,3,4 cable -> switch B
  • --- patching up switch A + B
• Room 1 -> Orbi Router
• Room 2 -> Orbi Satellite 1
• Room 3 -> Orbi Satellite 2

Thanks for chewing through this.