New AC1200 Dual Band WiFi Mesh Extender - Slow Connection

[Maxneumie]

Hi there, forgive me as I’m new to this, but I recently purchased and set up a AC1200 Dual Band WiFi Mesh Extender. After running a few speed tests I’m getting in between 18-28mbps download speeds. For reference, running a speed test from the same spot pre-extender had me running closer to 300mbps speeds. Is this normal dropoff? The technical support was not much help, they said to wait and it should speed up over time.

As a side note, when I use the Nighthawk mobile app there is an “update” icon in orange but it doesn’t actually allow me to update, as when I click on it it just takes me to the network map.

[plemans · Accepted solution]

The 5ghz will have faster speeds. 
I highly doubt your primary router was hitting 300mbps over 2.4ghz. 

Again, 5ghz is capable of faster speeds but not 2.4ghz. 

If you don't like the mesh features, you can disable it and just use separate ssids for it. 

How do I enable or disable One WiFi Name on my Nighthawk Mesh WiFi Range Extender? | Answer | NETGEA...

[Maxneumie]

For reference, here are two screenshots. I hope this helps. Thank you!

[Maxneumie]

And this is what I see when I click “update”.

[plemans]

The EX6150 is a mesh extender. Those speeds are pretty accurate for the 2.4ghz side but not the 5ghz size. 

Just for educational, extenders aren't going to increase your speeds, they're going to cover dead spots. Reason they don't increase speeds is because they have a 50% speed drop off. This happens because they have to go router---extender and then extender----devices with the same wireless chip. And it can't do both at once. So thats why it takes at least of 50% speed decrease. Plus you have to account for the extender being a ways away from the router, obstructions, and other wireless interference. 

So if you were hitting 300mbps in the same spot as the extender prior, devices connected to it can expect at best 150mbps. But that'd be over the 5ghz. Its a much faster network than 2.4ghz. 

[Maxneumie]

Really appreciate the info! I definitely never expected faster speeds in this part of the house, I just didn’t expect a 90% decrease either.

I guess my confusion stems from the fact that not only am I not able to figure out how to choose between the 2.4 and 5ghz, I’m now seeing all devices all over the house running on the same network at those slower speeds. In other words, I’m not seeing a way to differentiate between my existing network (pre-extender) and the current network (with extender and slower speeds).

At this point I feel like I sacrificed the speed of my entire WiFi network to combat this one “dead” zone. Is there anything I can mess around with to address this or is my only other option to get rid of the extender completely.

Thank you again!

[plemans · Accepted solution]

The 5ghz will have faster speeds. 
I highly doubt your primary router was hitting 300mbps over 2.4ghz. 

Again, 5ghz is capable of faster speeds but not 2.4ghz. 

If you don't like the mesh features, you can disable it and just use separate ssids for it. 

How do I enable or disable One WiFi Name on my Nighthawk Mesh WiFi Range Extender? | Answer | NETGEA...

[Maxneumie]

Beautiful, that worked like a charm. Sorry I couldn’t better articulate what needed to be done, and appreciate all your help!

[plemans]

Glad it worked for you!

If you took care if it, you can mark it solved so others aren't still trying to fix it 🙂