Netgear D7000 mesh

[ant3000]

I'm wanting to extend the range on my netgear d7000 and wondered what options I may have?

I'm currently using homeplugs to run a power line connection to the office however these seem to have died and so I'm looking at options for installing a mesh network in there place.

I figured I could go with an Orbi system and just use the d7000 as a modem however I starting to think this might be overkill and a netgear mesh extender like the AX8 may do the trick?

Does anyone have any recommendations?

many thanks in advance

[plemans · Accepted solution]

The AX extender would work, especially if you'd planned on upgrading in the furture. 

But if its going to be a while, the EX7700 would provide the same if not better performance becaase of the dedicated backhaul. And it'd be cheaper. 

[plemans]

I'd go with one of the triband extenders versus the AX extenders. Unless you plan on upgrading to an AX router (which I haven't seen a dsl AX router yet). 

They'd be cheaper and actually perform better because they don't take the throughput hit that single/dual band extenders take. 

How big is your home? are you only needing addional coverage to one area? 

What is the home made of? 

The triband orbi's are nice and function well so depending on home size either route might work fine. 

[ant3000]

Hi, Thanks for getting back.

We have a medium house and so the D7000 does the job on the whole and we only really have one black spot.

Do the extenders just plug and play without having to reconfigure the router? Am I able to plug a Synology NAS into the extender?

[plemans]

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@ant3000 wrote:

Hi, Thanks for getting back.

We have a medium house and so the D7000 does the job on the whole and we only really have one black spot.

Do the extenders just plug and play without having to reconfigure the router? Am I able to plug a Synology NAS into the extender?

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Medium house could mean a lot to different people/budgets. Is it 3000sqft, 60000sqft? What are the interior walls. 

The extenders aren't quite just plug and play but they're pretty easily setup. And the ones with ethernet would be able to plug your nas into. 

I'd look at the triband extenders. They have much better throughput/stability versus a dual band. 

[ant3000]

I would say we're about 190sqm over 3 floors. It's a new build so the walls are pretty much made of paper! 

I'll check out the tri band extenders. Do you think an AX8 would work with the d7000?

thanks for your help

[plemans]

You mean the EAX80? Its a dual band AX extender. 

Your D7000 isn't AX, its AC. It'd work but you wouldn't see the benefits of AX 

[ant3000]

I was thinking AX would be WiFi 6 and would future-proof maybe but it sounds as if the router would also need to be WiFi 6 compatible (as well as devices being wifi 6 capable)?

Based on that I figure the EX7700-100UKS would be the best fit for the d7000?

many thanks

[plemans · Accepted solution]

The AX extender would work, especially if you'd planned on upgrading in the furture. 

But if its going to be a while, the EX7700 would provide the same if not better performance becaase of the dedicated backhaul. And it'd be cheaper. 

[ant3000]

Excellent! Thanks for all your help, really appreciated.

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[ant3000]

I too your advice and hooked up a EX8000 WiFi extender to my D7000 router and connected to the extender a Synology NAS and 2 imacs over Ethernet however one of the iMacs has dropped internet connection over Ethernet yet the other iMac and NAS are both still connected?

When I log into the extender I can see the iMac that has lost internet connection doesn't have a virtual MAC address?

Checking iMac network settings I can see the Ethernet has self assigned an IP address but it's not within the range of the router.

Checking the router access against the WiFi extender I can see the wired connection IP addresses in the router list for the devices that are connected and receiving Ethernet however the MAC address showing on the router corresponds with the Virtual MAC address on the extender. The iMac without internet over Ethernet doesn't have a Virtual MAC address assigned?

Any ideas?

[plemans]

it seems strange that only 1 device is having issues. Especially when the other 2 are fine on there. 

Does that 1 device function fine plugged in for an extended period to the router? 

[ant3000]

Hi, Thanks for getting back. My iMac is upstairs in my office so I've never had it connected directly to the router however I am able to connect wirelessly?

Interestingly, the same thing happened just the other week (no internet over Ethernet) but on that occasion it affected all of the devices with a wired connection to the Extender? On that occasion I rebooted the Extender and all started working again (with internet to all devices over Ethernet) and continued to work without issue until yesterday when the single iMac dropped its connection?

I'm not sure if it's relevant but the reason that I bought the Extender was to replace some Powerline adapters that experinced the same problem (no internet over Ethernet) so I'm wondering if it might be an issue with the D7000 router rather than the extender? Perhaps something to do with how the router is assigning IP addresses?

[plemans]

it certainly could be an issue with the D7000. especially if you had the issue even prior to the extender. 

Are you on the Version 1 or version 2? 

firmware on it? 

You might search the forums for d7000 connection drops. I'm not the greatest on dsl devices 🙂 

[ant3000]

I've just checked and it's running Firmware V1.0.1.78_1.0.1 and there doesn't appear to be a firmware update?

I'll look into it a bit more and see if I can find any answers 

Thanks 

[plemans]

Sometimes the most recent firmware isn't always the greatest with the d7000.

You could try different firmware version. 

With that version any firmware version changes i'd do over a hardwired connection, factory reset afterwards, and then do a clean install (not from a backup configuration). These tend to have the best results.