I have a AC1900 WiFi Range Extender up and working, but I find it sometimes difficult to connect to it via a Cat-5 ethernet cable from my Toshiba Satellite laptop running the latest Ubuntu & Unity. Often, when I plut the cable in, the network manager just sits there and spins and spins. Other times it will connect directly without much fuss. My Nexus phone always connects on the 2G band no problem. Right now, I'm Bluetooth tethered to the phone (which is connected 2G wifi to the ex7000) to connect to the internet. Anybody have any suggestions why it's so difficult with a ethernet cable? You would think that would be the easiest and quickest connection, but no!
Thank you for responding to my question! BTW, it should be amartz, not amarrtz. Must have gotten a keyboard bounce somewhere when I was setting this account up, but now I can't find where to change it. To you questions, yes, I have tried a couple different ethernet cables. The one I'm using now is new, out of the box. And it works just fine when I plug it into the router, which is another Netgear product, and in another near-by building. I'm picking up it's signal across a small parking lot. I did configure the router when it was installed, and can still access it. it's an R6050 router (firmware V1.0.0.34_1.0.1, which I downloaded and updated when I set it up, with this same laptop and ethernet cable, btw). I don't know if you are familiar with Ubuntu? The laptop definately knows the extender is plugged into the ethernet port, because the network manager icon starts doing the same little dance it does when negotiating a wifi connection. Which, btw, is how I'm connecting to the extender right now, on the 5G band. Normally, the connect dance for an ethernet connection is very short. But not here. I'm puzzled about that. Any suggestions?
I tried deleting and re-adding the connection. It didn't make any difference. I'm pretty sure the little icon animation that plays is during the DHCP negotiations. The extender is in an adjoining building to the router, and it may not always be getting the strongest signal. I've got the wireless setup checked to route ethernet traffic thru the 5G band. Sometimes I have to switch that to the 2G band if I'm getting enough signal with the 5G band. I've also noticed that it seems to work much better if I switch off the wifi on my phone first. If the phone grabs a connection (on 2G, usually), the extender doesn't seem to want to talk to the ethernet connection any more. Whenever I unplug and plu-in the ethernet cable, I get an immediate reaction from the network manager, so I don't suspect a bad cable, or anything like that. I suspect it's occaisonal problems with the DHCP negotiations that prevent me from getting a "connected" message.
Just to clarify, so the laptop is receiving internet and you are able to use it normally, but the issue is that the connection icon takes longer than normal?
Have you tried switching WiFi channels on your router?
Actually, no. When it doesn't connect, it usually won't connect at all. The past couple days have been rainy, and it's given me a chance to experiment a bit. The issue seems to revolve around the quality of signal from the router (a new Netgear router) and DHCP. I normally have the Extender set to route ethernet over the 5G band. And when I get an adequate signal, it works well. But, it seems that the 5g band is more susceptible to weather than the 2g band. When the extender can't get a good DHCP negotiation from the router, it doesn't have an ethernet address to hand to my laptop, and it doesn't know how to find any server at all, including the Extender's status and settings page. What I have learned to do is tell the network manager to disconnect the ethernet connection (routed by default thru 5g), and connect to the 2g wifi. Odds are much better that will work. Then I can go into settings in the extender, and change the ethernet routing to the 2g band. When it resets, which drop the 2g wifi, I can usually go back to the ethernet connection, and this time it will work, because it's getting it's DHCP thru the 2g band. Not as fast as 5g, but at least it's working. BTW, the phone is a Nexus 5, running the latest and greatest Android version, 5.1.1. If it grabs the 2g band first, I frequently have a hard time competing with it from my laptop. And also, yes, I've been watching both the 2g and 5g wifi bands in the neighborhood, and recently changed both to somewhat quieter channels, and that has definitely helped.
