Windows 10: wi-fi range extender, distance and square footage claims ?

I live in a 3000 square foot house. Because of certain factors(my wife) I had to place my router in the downstairs office. I fiddled with powerline and extenders and none were satisfactory. I finally went with a premiun router. I now have whole house coverage on 2.4 and 5 which extends to the garage and back yard. The problem I found with powerline was the connections were only reliable if I could keep them on the same circuit. It did get me to install a whole house line conditioner/surge proterctor though.

 

Shouldn't be too hard to convince them... it will be a matter of 'do we need a newer one' and the cost.

The extender I found, don't remember the brand, said it had a 800 mWatt output. The other two I bought seem to have weaker signals and barely reach the shed where my ham shack is located. I also have a computer out there, with mostly intermittant connectivity. We always change the passwords from default.

 

Since our DirecTv setup is partially wireless, it causes additional load on the router. And some of us do game. I play Everquest, and there are 2 Mine Craft players in the house. The extender I had bought last fall had both 2.4 and 5 GHz. But it doesn't connect well out in the shack since the DirectTV install. That is why I was thinking an extender with a higher wattage signal would be better.

 

Upgrading the router may be the way to go for you then. I run 1 desktop,2 laptops,3 phones,1 tablet, a Plex server and a Roku wirelessly off of my router. Plus one desktop on Wan. They can often be on the internet at the same time. No issues. I can tell you what I run but to each there own.
OfficeStaples

 

I bought the Netgear R6200 today. Excellent signal out in my shed... but its local only. I come in the house, local and internet.

I see a large number of blocks in my AVG Internet Security firewall labelled 'System'. So that might be the problem. I have the software set to Interactive, so it is supposed to ask me and only block if I tell it to.

edit: the desktop out in the shed downloaded email, then lost conection to the internet and I was never able to get it back out there. I think its my firewall letting it through, then bocking it, without it asking me if I want it blocked. I hate software dvelopers who think I need hand holding or blocking things without letting me decide for myself.

 

My brother-in-law did suggest we just run an Ethernet cable out there, but it wont be this week. Too many holiday and other things going on. There is a place right behind the router cabinet, wood, that would let us connect a cable and then run it out to the shed.

 

That would be the best.
Is that Netgear set as AP by default? Otherwise, you need to manually set it first either as AP or Bridged to make it work.

 

AP wasn't on at first. It was on later on when we tried to connect things up.

We gave up trying to get everything connected to the Internet that needs to be connected to it.

I'll try again in the morning. Right now, the original router he bought is the only router connected to anything.

Some of the hardware connected to my new router, some only wanted to look for the old router, etc. It is a mess.

 

You have to delete the connection info of the old router on your devices.

 

I can connect, then it cannot find, the Netgear router when I plug an Ethernet cable between my laptop and the Neatgear router.

Is it my firewall ?

 

How are you using the Netgear router? is it connected to the main router (as access point) or directly to the modem?

 

I've tried both. Neirher works.

I did notice the Netgear has a different IP address than the Cisco. So this morning I was going to change the Neatgeat IP address to the same range as the Cisco one. As I was looking through the menus on the admin pages, I got disconnected and have not been able to connect back.

Even when I disable AVG Internet Security, it stil lcan be found in Task Manager. So I may just disconect from the Internet, uninstall AVG, try to configure the darn Neatgear router, then put verythnig back. If I still get 'unable to locate' with an Ethernet cable connectnig the laptop and the router, I'll just hammer out the router and/or the laptop and move on with my life.

 

If you are connecting the Netgear directly to the Cisco, first you have to make sure that the Netgear is in AP or Bridged mode. To do that, you have to disconnect the Cisco first and connect the Netgear first so you can access the admin page to change it to AP or Bridged mode. Just leave the IP range. It shouldn't be the same range because it's 2 separate routers (ex. 192.168.1.x and 192.168.100.x)
When you connect the Netgear to the Cisco, don't use the WAN port. Use one of the ports labeled 1,2,3 & 4 on the Netgear.

 

The Netgear is coming up 10.0.0.1 and I have no idea why. I had them Ethernet cabled together yesterday. The Cisco had no internet connection, local only. I don't know if Netgear router had AP or not on at the time. I didn't see a Bridged anything in the menus.

But I cannot change anything due to something blocking me from getting to the Netgear router even via direct cable from my laptop.

 

There should be a hard reset button on the Netgear somewhere in the back. Use a paper click to reset it. When you changed the IP range, something probably went wrong.