Trouble setting up new Nighthawk Tri-band WiFi range extender
Hi,
I should start by saying I am not very good with technology. We currently have the top broadband with Sky but have had issues with it. We live in a small-ish 3 bedroom house (UK) so our issue isn't due to having a large home. With our Sky router, we get adequate WiFi in the downstairs of our house but nothing towards the back of our kitchen and nothing when you step out into our garden which is approximately 12m from the router. We get WiFi in the room directly above the router but nothing in two of the bedrooms upstairs.
So after a recommendation from a friend who lives in a very large house, I ordered the WiFi range extender. It arrived yesterday and I set it up using the app. First of all I encountered an issue with the Firmware update as it wouldnt let us update, I just kept getting an error message. Eventually I gave up on that and skipped that step (perhaps this is where the issue is). I checked the app and it showed we had great connection.
However, the areas of our house which were 'black spots' before, still are.
I contacted Netgear and was told to move the extender to nearer the router, which I did but it didn't help. I then did a hard reset of the extender but again, we are still having the same problem. When I checked the app the speed test now showed moderate speeds.
I'm not sure what the issue is. I spent £160 on this thinking it would solve our issues but I'm feeling frustrated that it hasn't.
Has anyone experienced this that could offer some advice?
Thanks
Model: EX8000|AC3000 Nighthawk X6S Tri Band WiFi Mesh Extender
Re: Trouble setting up new Nighthawk Tri-band WiFi range extender
What materials is your home made from? Size isn't always the issue. Certain materials like brick, concrete, metal, plaster lathe, adobe all do great jobs of blocking wifi. Adding wireless extenders isn't always prductive as it needs a good connection to work off.
What materials is your home made from? Size isn't always the issue. Certain materials like brick, concrete, metal, plaster lathe, adobe all do great jobs of blocking wifi. Adding wireless extenders isn't always prductive as it needs a good connection to work off.
Thanks for your reply. It's made of bricks and mortar. There is only one layer of brickwork with no cavity. Does it sound like this is the issue? Our last broaband provider was much better then our current one. We only had two blackspots upstairs, now the internet can run slowly all over the house at times.
Re: Trouble setting up new Nighthawk Tri-band WiFi range extender
So you're now in a quandary. The brick blocks wifi. But can you get a decent enough signal through it for the ex8000 to work?
tough to say.
It basically comes down to testing. If the ex8000 is shut off, and you connect your phone to the routers 5ghz wifi where you're planning on putting the extender, does it work decently? If so, the extender should also work.
but if its slow, has high latency, then an extender isn't the ideal solution.
If that's the case, what you should be looking at is a mesh system with a wired backhaul if you want seamless roaming. If you don't, then you can simple use the EX8000 in access point mode with it hardwired in. the wired backhaul could be ethernet, a powerline setup, or even a moca adapter setup (ethernet over coax). Homes with walls that block wifi are a challenge and tend to be much more expensive to have consistent wifi connections.
Another thing you can try. many ISP supplied routers are kind of garbage half the time. Try connecting the EX8000 to the router in access point mode and see how well it covers the area versus the isp router.
