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Forum Discussion
is it better to conncet my nighthawk extender and routers with a cable?
Hi all,
My head is spinning from my lack of wifi knowledge and what i read online.
I am trying to set up my brothers house with a nighthawk ac1900 router connected to a nighthawk ac1900 extender like i have in my house. ( His set up will be like my house where the router will be on the first floor on one end of the house and the extender will be about 40 feet away on the first floor with a mostly uninterupted/ pretty clear line of sight to the extender. Each home is about 8 small bedrooms. )
----> Before i do so, would i be a lot better off linking the two with an eithernet cable to ease the load on the router and extender? Or does a nighthawk extender and router pair communicate just as well as a cable connected pair without sacrificing bandwidth. <---------------------
I read online that using the plug in extenders like the N300 you eat up 50 % of your bandwith because the router (or maybe extender?) has to do all that work to send a signal to another device thats resending it again... now sure how accurate that is. Also not so sure that applies to the sexy nighthawks.....
I currently could connect the two by running an eithernet cable along the celing fairly easily. (it won't look great but for greater functionallity i'd be happy to)
Heres the details. His and my house are very similar with up to about 8 different people using wifi in the home. I figure we may have 5 to 6 people sucking up the network some evenings. We both have comcast. His house has 100mb/s mine only has 25 mb/s. I honestly am shocked so many people can stream at once in my house with only 25 mb/s but i digress.
My house
-25 mb/s coming in.
-streams well with a nighthawk router and nighthawk extender. (I think they are the ac1900 but not positive i'll check.)
His house
-100mb
-comcast supplied DPC 3941 modem/ dual band router. Its older and due for free swap out, but i wanna nighthawk his whole house and dump the comcast equipment nonsense.
-we used to have a plug in white booster (N300 maybe). We streamed pretty good then. That little plug in booster left with an outgoing roomate last month and we now are on the quest for optimized home network set up.
I do understand the basics of the benefit to 2.4 combined with 5 megahertz wifi.
Recap:
Is the nighthawk a heck of a lot better then the N300 for sending out wifi to several different people without sacrificing bandwidth? Does using an extender eat up some bandwidth? Is connecting the two with a cable significantly better?
3 Replies
Hi drewbabich,
1. Please indicate the exact model number of both the router and the extender (EX6400 is indicated at the bottom of your post - please confirm since it is not a Nighthawk branded model).
2. If you already have both the devices (router and extender), we recommend checking for signal strength and quality at the distances or locations where the devices will be used so that you can optimize the extender placement.
3. If you have a fixed/set location for the router and extender as you have described, you can operate the extender on either Extender mode or Access Point mode.
4. In Extender mode, where the router and the extender will be linked via wireless, you have to make sure that the extender location is optimal where it gets a good signal from the router. And yes, chances are the bandwidth will be reduced due to bandwidth allocation on the processes (sending and receiving data) between the extender and router.
5. In Access Point mode, where you can run a cable from the router to extender, there won't be much of a sacrifice on bandwidth depending on the distance between the two devices (we recommend using cat5, cat5e, cat6 Ethernet cables).
6. Of course, there are other variables that may affect the setup and performance like the following, but not limited to wireless interference from neighboring wireless networks, materials of the house that may or may not reduce signal quality, network activity like gaming and/or streaming and equipment location.
7. We would recommend surveying and experimenting on the actual setup and location itself since network environments vary.
Regards,
Dexter
Community Team
- Thanks for the input Dexter.
I currently have the r7000 nighthawk on its way. Have yet to purchase the ex7000 extender but i plan buy that.
What I'm trying to understand is.
1. Is the night hawk ex7000 better for not using up additional bandwidth then say the n7300 smaller wall plug extender?
2. Does the ex7000 work at lot better then the n7300 to send out wifi to 8 potential Wi-Fi users.
3. Am I better off using a cat 5 cable and setting up my ex7000 as a access point instead of an extender from a bandwidth preservation strategy. Hi drewbabich,
1. If you are referring to the N300 (WN3000RP), then yes, spec-wise the EX7000 is better which allows for more headroom.
2. Ideally, it should, since it is dual band and has bigger and more external antennas.
3. As a general rule of thumb, wired is better than wireless whenever possible. However, the convenience/cost-efficiency of wireless can't be overlooked.
Regards,
Dexter
Community Team
