Yesterday I upgraded my wi-fi router from Netgear AC1600 to Nighthawk AX8. The installation went well with no hickups and latest firmware version was installed.
My concern is the coverage area of the AX8 is no better at all then that from my older AC1600. I read a lot of reviews regarding the coverage area and the consensus was positive.
Before yesterday in order to get a signal to my back bedroom to my TV I was utilizing Netgear AC1200 Extender. To get a signal in the same room with Nighthawk AX8 I had to install the Extender again. This was not what I was expection at all!
The distance from where the router is installed to the bedroom TV is approximately 35'. What am I misissing here? One of the "wings" is pointed in the direction to the bedroom, if that makes a difference. Also, if it makes any difference at all, the router is in the family room that has 3 exterior brick walls. But the router is butted next to an interior sheetrock wall.
I have attached my house layout. It is single story ranch.
Are your interior walls brick? or the wall the router is against?
Brick blocks wifi to an amazing extent. So does plaster lathe (many house with brick have plaster lathe interior walls).
Something else to keep in mind. The new AX spec didn't increace antenna output power (because its set by the FCC) so AX doesn't reach any futher than AC did. What it did do was allow a little more efficiency with a lower signal on AX devices. So AC devices aren't going to much extra distance (if any) and even AX devices will only get a little extra range. And even that isn't much.
Thanks for responce. My interior walls are not brick, only exterior walls. The router is against an interior wall as can see from the house layout. If the routers "wings" are any indication as to how to point the beam (signal), then this means it's trying to penerate through 2 brick walls?
I was hoping I would not have to relocate the router from the family room because it's were the internet modem is located.
This room is adjoined to the house and the floor is concrete. Meaning cabling would have to cross overtop of the threshold to the rest of the house. Can't drill through concrete floor to route cabling.
Relocating the router from this room appears to be the only option here. But cable management and maintaining a "clean" look will prove to be challange.
I just mean for testing. buy a cheap 10-20 ft ethernet cable and run it for 24-48 hours and see how it works. If it doesn't help, then its pointless to move it. But if it does help, it means something in the wall is blocking it. Then moving it might be ideal. and it wouldn't have to be to the kitchen. If there was a jack for the modem a bedroom, you could see if it'd work in there for the home.
Yes, I get what your saying and I'll have to try this. Thanks.
Just thinking outside the box here, I still have my old Netgeat AC1600 just laying around unused. Could I not in some way incorportate it into the enviorment and simply do away the extender? Like run a cable from it's WAN port to one of the 5 ports behind the AX8?
It's not in front of me, all I recall is it's Dualband AC1600 Wi-Fit Router with 1 WAN and additional 4 ethernet ports.
Without performing trail and error on my part, I set the old router as access point, would I run ethernet cable from it's ethernet port of it's WAN port back to the RAX?
