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Forum Discussion
Looking for Upgrade advice from R8500
Opinions matter, please share yours.
I have a split level house (4 levels) 80' × 50'. I have used many wifi setups over the last 15 years and my current setup has been working, but now that the house, my kids and wife use multiple devices (normally 35, can be as many as 55), i need to look at a better system.
I use a firewall (yes they still exist) downstream of my x cable modem with 800Mbps. That goes to a wired 16p router running DHCP (like I said, lots of devices) and from there to my 8500, an N300 (because the 8500 can not be seen by my HP printers) and 4 additional 5 and 8 port switches.
It is a nightmare when my kids friends or family come over and connect their devices obviously. I do use my 5ghz networks where I can, but for some reason, my house has always given connectivity issues (slow performance, poor connection, drop outs) no matter where I have placed the router.
If anyone wants to throw their hat in this ring and offer some advice (other than use less devices or change house) I would love to try and find something much much easier to deal with.
Thanks for reading my mental worm..;)
I have a split level house (4 levels) 80' × 50'. I have used many wifi setups over the last 15 years and my current setup has been working, but now that the house, my kids and wife use multiple devices (normally 35, can be as many as 55), i need to look at a better system.
I use a firewall (yes they still exist) downstream of my x cable modem with 800Mbps. That goes to a wired 16p router running DHCP (like I said, lots of devices) and from there to my 8500, an N300 (because the 8500 can not be seen by my HP printers) and 4 additional 5 and 8 port switches.
It is a nightmare when my kids friends or family come over and connect their devices obviously. I do use my 5ghz networks where I can, but for some reason, my house has always given connectivity issues (slow performance, poor connection, drop outs) no matter where I have placed the router.
If anyone wants to throw their hat in this ring and offer some advice (other than use less devices or change house) I would love to try and find something much much easier to deal with.
Thanks for reading my mental worm..;)
17 Replies
One possible suggestion would be to add a EX8000 wifi extender to your home to help off load the additional devices being connected.
- So... add ANOTHER wifi network... lol... my poor brain wants to simplify my rig, not make it harder to keep track of.. lol. ;) And yes, this is all light hearted spitballing. :)
Kinda, however you would not see the additional network, would all still be the same SSID name. The Extender would just repeat or extend the current routers wifi signal to other parts of the home and devices would connect to this EX unit instead of the R8500 router. Help off load devices and connections from the router to give some work load to the EX extender.
Silhyboy1 wrote:
So... add ANOTHER wifi network... lol... my poor brain wants to simplify my rig, not make it harder to keep track of.. lol. ;) And yes, this is all light hearted spitballing. :)
- I have been using EX8000 in conjunction with R8500 for past couple years. FTP and average down speeds of 360MB. Extender is in room above (wireless connection) and getting speeds averaging 150MB.
Considering adding another EX8000 for access in a new workspace in my garden. Recommended.
The R8500 is a pretty solid router.
the N300, not so much.
Are you using the same ssid with the N300 as you are the R8500?
Are you using smart connect on the R8500?
If so, I'd recommend disabling it and setting your devices to a specific band.
You put your home is 80x50 with 4 levels but split. Are you saying its square footage is 16,000 sqft (50x80x4 levels) or half of that at 8,000sqft (50x80 x2 because of split level)?
Either one of them is a huge home.
Even the orbi setups take multiple satellites with homes that large.
https://kb.netgear.com/000060584/Which-Orbi-WiFi-System-is-best-for-me
so how big is the home?
What are the interior walls made of?
- Asking about square footage tells me you have no idea what a split level house is...The footprint of the house on the ground is 80x50 approximatly. Split level means that it is 4 half size stories (approximately 40x50each). Make 1 story a garage and 1 a basement and there ya go. Roughly 2000 sqft living space. Square footage
REALLY isn't a good metric anyway to guestimate a radio signal strength. As for building material, its your normal run of the mill drywall on wood construction, but because of the split level architecture, double the amount of walls between any radio and target (wall and possibly a floor or 2).
It has made it very challenging to cover.
As for the routers. The N300 is strictly a print server for some HP network capable printers and 3 NAS drives since I only had 1 rj45 available in that room and has its own ssid and is wired lan to lan.
The 8500 is centrally located and is also wired lan to lan. I never used the smart connect. I did try it when I first got the router, but found it would jump bands with connection lag for absolutely no discernable reason so it got turned off... lol
Silhyboy1 wrote:
Asking about square footage tells me you have no idea what a split level house is...The footprint of the house on the ground is 80x50 approximatly. Split level means that it is 4 half size stories (approximately 40x50each). Make 1 story a garage and 1 a basement and there ya go. Roughly 2000 sqft living space. Square footageI do know what split level is, its why i was questioning your numbers as thats a large home.
40x50=2000 sq ft. for each "half story". And you have 4 of them per your post. That'd be 8000sqft.
Thats why I'm questioning those numbers.
Even if your looking at that wrong and its half of that, 4000sq ft is a large home as well. I've got a 3200sq ft home and with an Orbi AC system, I use a router and 2 satellites. With an Orbi AX, i use a router and one satellites.
Its why I'm trying to clarify.
Plus the layout is key. If you're at the 4000sq ft size but the router is at one end of the home, half the signal doesn't cover the home because the signal is omnidirectional. Its why we recommend centrally locating routers. Even centrally located, a single router would struggle to cover 4000sqft.
So how much actual footage is the home? And where is the router located?
