Be Excellent To Each Other

I have a EE super hub, and it seem to be struggling with all the connections to it.

I have 2 PCs via Lan cable, 2 PS4s by power adapters.

The wifi I have, 17 connected devices. TV, 5 Google nest/minis and phones etc

I have spread the devices across 2.4 and the 5 connections.

Am I better looking at a new router/wifi hub or mesh. I am a bit clueless on these..

Thanks

Have a look at what channel all your neighbours are using. Download something like WiFi Analyser which will show you the clearest channels near you to avoid clashing overlapping networks

Will give that a go.

I put a Deco M5 mesh in yesterday. So far nothing has dropped.

An oddity is, if a PS4 connects via Wi-Fi it blocks logging in, if I wired connect to the M5 it works ok.. Time to investigate further.

Fixed that too... the DNS needed to be 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8 all works now.

Put your deco in bridge mode so all DHCP and DNS is transparently left to the main router.

I've got 3 deco m9 plus units as the backbone with m5 units on the edges, it's bloody brilliant. Hasn't failed in months, I dont even worry about it anymore. Bridged to the bt smart hub 2 the base deco is wired to.

Way better than the much more expensive Linksys velops I was trying to use, but that are incapable of actually meshing for more than about 3 hours in this house before needing to be power cycled in specific order - with a 5 minute boot per node, instead of under 30 seconds for deco.

If you've got >100mbps broadband I also recommend giving 2.4ghz and 5ghz WiFi networks different names so that stupid devices don't cling to 2.4ghz like morons, even when they notionally do the proper mesh protocols, like my oppo android phone.

That's done by turning off 2.4ghz in the deco WiFi settings and setting up the 'guest' network on which you turn off 5ghz and making sure the 'isolate from main network' option is disabled.

It's a pain if you've got loads of 2.4ghz devices mind.

And turn off the WiFi on your broadband router, obviously.

Cheers Bik..

I have turn off the Wi-fi on my EE hub, everything is connected to the Deco stuff.

I will look at the bridge mode.

Kov, you broke the internet.

Let me turn it back on

I bought a D-Link COVR-X1860 2-piece mesh network jobbie thing earlier in the week, and I'm having some oddities with it.

By default it runs in router mode, and I have my existing modem/router (TP-Link Archer VR200) connected to it via Ethernet cable into the D-Link's WAN port.

In this mode, everything works great and all of my devices can access the Internet wonderfully, and the mesh spreads out throughout the house and into the garden as desired.

However, my printer - which connects to WiFi - is not contactable by any device that is connected over hard-wired Ethernet. I assume this is because the D-Link's network is all on 192.168.0.x and my existing network is all on 192.168.1.x.

If I set the D-Link to bridge mode, everything is contactable by everything else regardless of whether it's hard-wired or wireless, but the WiFi from the main router then no longer stretches throughout the house and into the garden.

Any networking sperts on here that can help me figure this out? Do I need to connect the D-Link to my router/switch on its LAN port as well as the WAN port?

Are you running 2 DHCPs?

Possibly - if I were to disable one, I assume I'd disable the one on the D-Link?

I had this issue with my TP-Link mesh. I had my pc in my router and it would not print.

I ended up buying a 5 port switch and connecting to the mesh, as the mesh jobbies only have 2 ethernet ports. Leaving only the mesh in the router. I connect my PC and laptop to the switch, and everything else is wi-fi.

It is not elegant but it works.

192.168.0.xxx and 192.168.1.xxx are on separate subnets by default, so they won't be able to "see" each other directly. Uou should really try and get everything in the same range. The easiest way to do that would be to use a single DHCP. Instinct tells me to use the one on your wired router.

It all hides behind a monitor

That is what I was going to do, but it meant some of the inbuilt mesh stuff would be switched off.

Fucking printers, man.

If an IT person was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden and a printer and they had a gun with two bullets they'd shoot the printer twice.

Amen

I love my little Samsung laser printer, because at least 70% of the time it prints when you send something to it over wi-fi.
I mean, sure...maybe it drops the whole job most of the time if it runs out of paper mid print, and ok... the spooling arm refuses to pick up the next sheet of paper unless the pile is in exactly the right position, and yes... if you need to change WiFi settings it's best to factory default it if you want it to actually find the new WiFi within 5 minutes of searching, while you randomly press buttons on the top that have unfathomable glyphs on them, that do absolutely nothing.

But it's still legitimately the best and most reliable printer that I've ever owned.

This. It's excellent, impenetrable warts and all.

I changed my printer from an Epson inkjet - which we used so rarely that it had inevitably dried out by the time we came to print anything - for a Brother colour laser.

We still don't use it that often (although in the first lockdown we printed off a lot of worksheets for the kids while they were at home school) but - when the devices can connect to it, at least - it is reliable.

I have an all singing, all dancing HP printer with the instant ink offer where they'll send you new ink cartridges when they run out for 'just' £1.99 a month.

It also works whenever I need it to, prints from my PC and sometimes my phone and generally does a great job. I use it a fair bit and it's great for printing game covers.

Laser is the only way

I do this too.

Me too!

Excellent... two more to the printing game covers club!

..

About a year and a half ago I plugged my wireless HP printer in, set it up and it’s worked every time since. Moved home, plugged it in at the new place and it was just working.

10/10 would print again.

My theory is that there is a cap on the number of printers in the world that will work at any one point, when yours stops working, someone else's will start.

I wish I could help but I'm just baffled. If the dlink stops meshing in bridge mode I'd say there's something fundamentally wrong with either it or the router it's plugged into, though.

Makes me glad my printer is still a USB connected all in one that, against all the odds, still works on Windows 10 despite Canon's best efforts to make it not work properly in Windows 7 when it actually supported that OS.

Although my trusty laser printer hasn't been used in months - it's usually when Mum needs some forms printing. The Royal Mail, ParcelForce and Interparcel sites all support 6x4 postage labels now, so all my own printing gets done on my Dymo Labelwriter - another reliable little printer too, but with the big advantage of it not taking up much space.

We are getting a garden office, will be around 15 metres from where we currently have our router plugged in. They have offered to install an ethernet connection in the garden office, which will cause some disruption in the house. Cost roughly £900.

I feel like we would be better off getting mesh WiFi instead - would need to support two PCs in the garden office.

I'm not remotely techy. Is mesh likely to be the right option? By right I mean:

- reliable
- cost effective
- easy to maintain

?

Any thoughts or experiences with garden offices and or mesh welcome!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07XSBGP7G/ ... SFR6RSF18J

We have this. A doddle to set up and works through two consumer units and into the garden office fine

15m should be reasonably easy for a decent mesh setup. I've had good success with the Google Nest Wifi

Excellent, thank you both, much appreciated.

If they are going to run armoured mains cable to the office, then get them to run an armoured network cable alongside. There’s no way it should cost £900 as it’s about two quid a meter.

Unfortunately we already have an armoured power cable run down to the end of the garden, which we put in when we did the extension a few years ago.

Ah. In that case I’d go for powerline rather than mesh WiFi.

God no. Power line looks like it should be better on paper but in practice it just isn't. At all.

However - was the power run out there put in a conduit as it should have been? If so there should be space for ethernet. Yes technically it might be inadvisable for heating reasons but realistically probably fine.

With our rodent proofing overspend on lighting rewiring in the loft they put individual live/neutral/earth wires through conduit instead of 3 core sheathed because of heat... Then said we could lay as much insulation on top/under as we liked.

Are powerlines that bad? I'd been considering using one to set up some network access in the shed as it's just too far from the wireless router

As long as the powerline connectors and in the same circuit and the sockets and cables are up to code and in good condition, powerline can be almost as good as a direct ethernet connection.

There's a lot of caveats in that statement, sure but I imagine that Fop's stuff is all pretty much brand new

In the olden days when I occasionally had to print A3 photos, I had a foam mallet for hitting my printer. I fucking hated the thing.

I have a B&W laser printer, which my brother got from work (he works for one of those office eqpt co’s). It works pretty much faultlessly

Sometimes they work well, sometimes they don't - they're certainly a lot better than they used to be. And they're so cheap it's worth giving one a go before setting up a whole new wireless network.

I've got powerline out to my office and it works very reliably - TP Link AV1300 ones.
I don't get anywhere near the 1300mbit theoretical speeds, but it's stable and plenty fast enough.

I have a couple of powerlines I can try when the office is up and running. I've actually had patchy experience with them in the house so far, but you never know. If they don't do the biz then sounds like mesh or Google Wifi will work. And sounds like installing a separate ethernet connection is excess to requirements.

So in all, v helpful, thanks all!

Note that Google Wifi and Nest Wifi are different, and only Nest Wifi does "true" mesh - all the satellite routers in Google Wifi will connect to the main router.

I just put in a powerline connection in my place to replace a wireless connection. It is considerably wicker ( although given that the reason I changed was that the wireless was suddenly getting maximum 1kbps, that wasn't hard. Although it's providing twice the speed that it did on wireless)

Conversely, the system at my father's was dramatically improved by putting in a mesh network.