This topic

Question about home setup

Dangerousdriver77 — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 22:20:08 GMT

Hi guys,

So I came over to BT from Sky a few months ago and went for the full fibre 900. I then bought an ASUS AX3000 gaming router as I wasn’t impressed at all with the wireless performance as my house is Victorian with lots of solid walls etc. Then after buying this I soon realised it had improved the wireless range, but not enough and the back of the house wasn’t getting a WiFi signal at all.

I then went and purchased 4 Linksys MX2000 Atlas 6 WiFi extender nodes. I have the parent node connected via Ethernet to the router and then the remaining 3 connected wirelessly. It has given the previous areas that were black spots a good WiFi signal, but I am not impressed with the speeds I am getting from the parent node. If I stand next to it with the channels split I get a max of around 450Mbps on 5GHz late at night with my 2023 MacBook Pro.

I have also turned off the WiFi on the ASUS router as I don’t want to add additional WiFi signals into the mix.

So, my question I guess is do you think I would be better connecting the Linksys parent node directly to the ONT and cut out the ASUS as the middle man? And also I have the firewall turned on with the ASUS router, but not the Linksys nodes. Any thoughts on this?

TIA

Re: Question about home setup

countrypaul — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 23:05:04 GMT

Have you checked with something connected directly to the router with Ethernet to see what speed it can provide? Also what speed do you obtain from the router via WiFi to a close by client (Macbook Pro)?

It is worth obtaining figures for these before trying to change your Linksys setup, as if the Ethernet won't deliver >450Mb/s then WiFi certainly won't.

Re: Question about home setup

bobpullen — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 23:40:43 GMT

The Linksys MX2000 is a 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 device at a glance, meaning the max wireless PHY speed will be 1200mbps. You'll not get that in real life throughput though; roughly half it for a decent estimation. That would make your observed speeds a little on the slow side but not a million miles away from what I would expect.

Google a few reviews for the MX2000 that feature throughput tests and you'll realise that what you're seeing likely isn't indicative of a problem.

Re: Question about home setup

Crimliar — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 17:29:26 GMT

I'd pretty much agree with @bobpullen about what to expect from the MX2000 system. As a tip though in Victorian houses, it can often be useful to keep mesh nodes all on the same floor (ground usually or 1st floor in a three story) as WiFi tends to penetrate wooden floors much better than it does solid walls. If the wiring s good, and each floor has it's own ring main, this also introduces the possibility of connecting the Mesh nodes using powerline adapters. Just don't go throwing more and more money at it!