Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Need help with my home network

Mar 12, 2018 1:08PM PDT

In my house, I have 3 routers (I have a pretty big house) connected Lan-to-Lan and the wifi speed on one of the routers is pretty slow.
On the first floor, I have the main router (TP-Link) connected to my ISP's modem, DHCP ON, ip 192.168.0.1. Also on the first floor, I have another router (D-Link), connected to the first router through the Lan port, DHCP OFF, ip 192.168.0.2 and on the second floor I have a third router(D-Link) connected to the first router through the Lan port, DHCP OFF, ip 192.168.0.3. All routers are using the same WiFi SSID, same password and DIFFERENT channels. Router 1 and 2 (1st floor) can give me full speed both on wired and wireless connections (60mb/s), 3rd router (2nd floor), gives me full speed on wired connection but on wireless connection it only gives me 1~4 mb/s which is pretty awful. All routers are using the latest firmware.
Do you guys have any idea of what the problem might be?
Thank you!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
Have you tried
Mar 12, 2018 1:13PM PDT

An unique SSID on the slow router? Also is the slow router a different make and model?

- Collapse -
No
Mar 12, 2018 1:17PM PDT

Haven't tried a different SSID but the whole point of that is to have the same network across my apartment and eliminate the need to change networks depending on where I am.
All 3 routers are different models

- Collapse -
You can always put it back.
Mar 12, 2018 1:25PM PDT

Sometimes I run across folk that won't try. Also, since they are 3 different models you can move the bad one around to another location to see if the problem is the router or the location.

A few things to try before you determine where the issue is.

- Collapse -
Okay
Mar 12, 2018 1:26PM PDT

Will try and switch router 2 and router 3 and will get back to you

- Collapse -
There we go.
Mar 12, 2018 1:42PM PDT

Changing to a unique SSID forces us to connect to the close hotspot. After too many calls on "all the same SSID" setups I'm not to ever use that system. You can't tell which spot you connected to so you can't be sure it's the router or the connection is to another router too far away.

If you want to go mesh, go mesh. But this setup of all the same SSID tends to result in complaints like yours.

- Collapse -
.
Mar 12, 2018 2:11PM PDT

I`m 100% positive that the problem is with router 3, located on 2nd floor because my phone/laptop show full signal. If there wasnt router 3 upstairs, I couldnt get more than 15% signal there

- Collapse -
Good hunting.
Mar 12, 2018 2:54PM PDT

All I can do here is share my troubleshooting methods. As details are slim about what this model 3 is along with age, firmware version I can't offer more.