Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

stonecoldtx
Aspirant

Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

Hi, All--

 

I have had this WNDR4500v3 router for several years, and it has great reception from nearly anywhere on my property, but of course, it is limited to "N" speeds . . .

 

A couple of years ago, I purchased a Cisco RV340W Dual-WAN router, so I could have redundancy with multiple ISP providers, since I work from home.  This router has 4 antennas, and the Netgear has none . . . the WiFi reception performance couldn't come close to matching the Netgear, so I set the Netgear up as an Access Point and disabled the WiFi radios on the Cisco.  That worked fine for the last couple of years.

 

Fast forward to last month--I decided it was time to upgrade to the latest 802.11ax spec router, to improve my wirelss speed, and started researching . . . there were online reviews of the TP-Link models with 802.11ax, so I ended up buying one of those . . . it also had 4 antennas, where again, my Netgear had none . . . I set it up as an Access Point just like the Netgear, and any way you sliced it, the reception compared to the Netgear was poor--sometimes even in the same room with the router!!

 

I tried an ASUS AX router (which also has antennas--2 to be exact) as an Access Point, but it also had poor WiFi reception compared to the N900, so I returned those and kept the TP-Link routers, thinking that maybe I might be able to somehow tweak them to receive better performance.

 

One day, the 2.4Ghz band that my Smart devices stopped working, so I decided to try to find a good deal on another router, and found the Netgear Nighthawk RAX35-nas for a great price and bought it.  My thoughts were--it's a Netgear--it has to have good WiFi reception!

 

Well, after having this Netgear now for 4 days, and playing around with the settings, including disabling the AX specs, I STILL have poor WiFi reception!!  WT ACTUAL F?!?!?!?

 

Why did I have such great reception wtih a WiFi router that had no antennas, and have such POOR reception with any modern router that has antennas?!?!?!?  For the record, that's THREE routers I've tried now, all from different manufacturers, and NONE of them match the reception of my several-years-old Netgear N900/WNDR4500v3 router!!

 

What do I have to do to get at least comparable reception?!?!?!?  Is there some AX (or hell, even an AC) router out there that can match my N900?!?!?

Model: WNDR4500v3|N900 WIRELESS DUAL BAND GIGABIT ROUTER
Message 1 of 8
stonecoldtx
Aspirant

Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

Oh, and before anybody asks, ALL of the routers involved had the latest firmware installed--ALL of them!!

 

Message 2 of 8
plemans
Guru

Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

How are you measuring wifi reception? 

Did you do an actual speedtest?

The limits on broadcast power was set prior to the WNDR that you had. And routers were maxing that out before the WNDR. 

The difference comes down to actual throughput. The newer AC and AX devices might say they have lower connection strength but still have significant faster throughput speeds because they are more efficient and have higher thoroughput. 

Message 3 of 8
stonecoldtx
Aspirant

Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

How do I measure?  How about remaining connected to the router? 

 

When I sit in the same room as the router, and it can't maintain a connection, througput speeds are meaningless if it DROPS the connection!!

 

 

Message 4 of 8
plemans
Guru

Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

You've tried multiple routers. If they're ALL dropping connections in the same room, I wouldn't be looking at the router. I'd be looking at the modem/gateway and lines feeding both. 

 

You can test wireless speeds and wired speeds using speedtest.com , fast.com,  dslreports.com

Message 5 of 8
stonecoldtx
Aspirant

Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

I think you missed the part where I said it does not happen with my WNDR4500v3 . . . that eliminates any other issues except that these modern routers with external antennas don't have very good range--even in the same room . . .

 

Message 6 of 8
plemans
Guru

Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

So 1 router doesn't have issues. All the other ones do. 

And you think its because they have external antennas. 

 

When all the new stuff doesn't work properly but a device that was originally released in 2011, it makes me think its just old/slow enough that its not recognizing the modem/gateway dropping. 

 

What modem/gateway do you have? 

what speeds do you pay for? 

Message 7 of 8
stonecoldtx
Aspirant

Re: Poor WiFi reception and speed with with new routers

You keep talking about speed, when the topic is about connectivity . . . if you can't connect or remain connected to your WiFi Router in AP mode, you won't get ANY speed!  That's what is happening here!!  My devices do not remain connected to any of these modern routers!!

 

Even something as simple as a DirecTV HR54-700!! Or, my Ring devices!!

 

If you read my original post, you would have seen that I have a Cisco RV340W Dual-WAN router as my Gateway . . . and no, the wireless range on it can't compare to the WNDR4500v3's range. Both of my WAN connections are 1Gbps, but as stated above, that is irrelevant!

 

The fact that this does not occur on any of my Legacy, 802.11N routers that are set as Access Points, but all of which have no external antennas tells me that there is a problem with that type of design . . .

 

I'm done here.  Mods, please delete this thread.

Message 8 of 8
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