I purchased the Nighhawk Mesh extender a couple of months ago and am still having trouble getting it to connect to 2g & 5g. It says for best results use channels 100-128 but the router I have only goes up to channel 48. It is connecting to the network - I'm in the UK using a BT dual band router and find when logging into the extender it says neither channels are connected. I've tried separating the channels on the router and also letting it choose automatically but nothing works. I've updated the firmware this morning.
Frustrated to say the least - I had a small Netgear extender plugged in upstairs for several years which worked better and was a fraction of the cost! The house is fairly large with solid brick walls so I have recently moved to router to a better position out of a small room but still no joy. Does anyone have any other solutions please?
The key thing you said right there was brick walls. Brick, concrete, plaster lathe, hvac all do an excellent job of blocking wifi signals. A very good job. The other issue you're going to have is that 5ghz has much higher throughput but to achieve that it sacrifices penetration. Meaning it can't pass through as much stuff at the 2.4ghz band. It might be why your cheaper extender worked better as it was only a 2.4ghz extender. If you're walls are truly brick, a powerline device, moca device, or routing ethernet throughout your house might be your best bet.
Sorry for not replying sooner. I believe you're correct about the wall thickness interfering with the connection - this is a big house with very thick brick walls. Routing ethernet all the way through is not feasible but as the 5g isn't really that critical I gave up on it but now have another issue.
I couldn't get a connection on the TV Amazon Firestick recently fitted so I moved the extender into the same room and managed to connect the Firestick to it and get it working but although it's showing as a wifi connection on my phone and tablet in both 2g & 5g they won't connect to either - it says unable to obtain IP address. How do I find out what the IP address should be so I can connect them manually?
Its unable to get an IP address because the router gives out the IP address. If the extender can't connect back to the router, it doesn't get the IP. You're walls are going to cause all kinds of problems. Possible option for you is going the route of powerline devices.
Thanks for the response. It looks like I might as well have just stuck with another single extender which is plugged in upstairs and works as the powerline adaptors do saving myself the cost of the Nighthawk 😞 I think the whole top and bottom of this is the fact we have had to change the superfast broadband connection we had which was on a different phone line for work to the basic package on our home line when I retired. Most of the problems we have stem from that time. We will definitely be changing back once the current contract is finished which will hopefullty solve the issues.
