Wifi issues

[iancity]

Hi, so, live small 3 bed terrace by myself, internet comes into the house upstairs more or less at the top of the landing - wifi access upstairs good but downstairs has been poor - sky box would often not connect and occasional issues with wifi on the phone. Changed provider to utility warehouse amongst other things hoping a new router would help - it didn't. Changed to a TP link router hoping that would solve the issues - nope, added a tp lnk access point downstairs in the living room but still no further forward - sky box often fails to download anything, trying to play online (Xbox downstairs in living room) is hit and miss but mostly miss, and numerous issues trying to connect my Kef wireless speakers.

There is no-one else in the house using the wifi, devices connected are the ipad/iphone, Kef, Tv Sky and xbox but not all on at the same time.
Dug a little deeper into the xbox setting and my network was showing 53% wireless strength and 100% packet loss. Tried following some tips for reducing packet loss, cleared Mac address, changed dns, reset all devices numerous times etc and ended up with 100% wireless strength but still 100% packet loss, making multiplayer unplayable. Gave up and put an episode of Kin on that I had recorded - that stopped after 6 minutes as sky couldnt connect to the internet and the download failed which was just the last straw and hence this post as I am so frustrated with it.

Having already spent £150 on the router and booster/access point I'm reluctant to spend anymore if its not going to fix the issue, but happy to pay for something that will defo work - reading on here about MESH systems but have to admit I'm an IT novice and dont really understand how they work, how you make them an access point or a hub or whatever - can some one let me know how best to proceed - anything else to try with the router I have first, or the best (and easiest) MESH system to buy/set up)? Did start reading the MESH and best wifi threads but got a little lost on them!

Please explain as if you are talking to a 5 year old :-)

Much appreciate any help

Thanks

 

[Slick]

I have similar issues as they have brought the WiFi into my house at the far end meaning I can go halfway across a field and pick it up, but wander anywhere near the kitchen and you get nothing. Apparently I need a disc to extend it.

 

[wafter]

Obvious choice would be to install an ethernet cable from the upstairs router to a downstairs access point... although I appreciate this might be easier said than done.

We have similar problems - house has thick walls and wifi signal is almost non-existant on the opposite side of the house to the access point.

We're being forced to go to fibre shortly which will mean no more upstairs router and AP as the new provision will be coming in downstairs; meaning realistically I need to run cable upstairs somehow to serve an AP. Not looking forward to that

 

[Slick]

Depending on provider there are a few different options rather than cable.

It is the only way to get full speed, but majority of devices can't handle the full speed anyway so WiFi is fine.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Seems rather weird
One possibility could be that something is either blocking the wifi to the Sky box or it corrupting it

Try switching off everything electrical near the box and moving the box itself as far out into the middle of the room as possible maybe

Does the Sky box have an ethernet socket?

If so then you could use a Powerline type plug to connect it to the router

like this -

View: https://www.amazon.co.uk/TL-PA4010KIT-Powerline-Configuration-Required-UK/dp/B01BECPIMC/ref=sr_1_12?adgrpid=1187473457006654&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kw9KFgQ54baEZAxR630cAeaPi5u4ri1pV7iBEHM84pM07Pwp-Rgc0zMnNug7ar_J0j5sR7FZYE54JAV000HZS96cAn2M994Dj1_7xgEMq7svoOA7iCiczv2b33OuVGru5oEIWmbLIU5dVGzkY9HEtfagS5scMX9HVAmQi2GKulQ_iRLinRAhLWxkVYtGR853qByUurQbyS6sC9TELWm-dVo4_TAbUKv8bbm3feeX1dU.zhW5MryoaTkiXt32BUuxTadwuAFv5cuquwCvSm9x0rk&dib_tag=se&hvadid=74217291608337&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=4923&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-74217227949327%3Aloc-188&hydadcr=4425_1824205&keywords=power+ethernet+adapters&qid=1705354299&sr=8-12


Good luck

 

[cyberknight]

we are on sky with similar issues
old house with solid walls . good signal downstairs but upstairs you can barely get any signal and its slow , i managed to get sky to throw in a booster box ( looks like a router ) upstairs for free which seemed to solve the problem,

 

[markemark]

Sky boxes often don’t like connecting to access points over wifi. Your best bet is to run an Ethernet cable from your sky box to your access point. It’s what I’ve done with a couple of sky q mini boxes and it works perfectly.

Just get a Powerlune adaptor that has Ethernet ports, plug it very close to the sky box and connect with an Ethernet cable. Reboot the sky box and it’ll connect over the cable. I can’t remember if you should delete the sky wifi settings to force it to use the wired connection but you can try that if it fails to connect properly.

 

[bobzmyunkle]

Just get a Powerlune adaptor that has Ethernet ports, plug it very close to the sky box and connect with an Ethernet cable. Reboot the sky box and it’ll connect over the cable.

In my experience, powerline adaptors don't always work if on different circuits - eg upstairs ring and downstairs ring. Might be worth seeing if you can borrow a pair to check.

 

[markemark]

In my experience, powerline adaptors don't always work if on different circuits - eg upstairs ring and downstairs ring. Might be worth seeing if you can borrow a pair to check.

Definitely the case but assuming it does work, then it’s the safest bet to get the sky box working as I went through the same issues a few years back.

 

[si_c]

In my experience, powerline adaptors don't always work if on different circuits - eg upstairs ring and downstairs ring. Might be worth seeing if you can borrow a pair to check.

They should work fine, there is a path through the consumer unit to talk. But worth checking, as older, poor quality cabling in the walls can impact performance significantly.

One thing to check is to make sure that your upstairs and downstairs access points are differently named - unlike with cell towers there is no handover between access points on wifi. If you have them both named the same then there is a strong possibility that devices connect to the one further away with poor signal. I have this at home, internet comes into my office upstairs at the front of the house, devices in the kitchen or living room at the back suffer much reduced wifi signal - particularly at 5GHz - so I set up a powerline wifi adaptor in the kitchen, it generally works really well, but sometimes the TV connects to the upstairs wifi and then suffers random disconnects and poor speeds. Using a differnent name for the network downstairs might help.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

In my experience, powerline adaptors don't always work if on different circuits - eg upstairs ring and downstairs ring. Might be worth seeing if you can borrow a pair to check.

True - check the fusebox

also - do not connect them using extension leads with surge protection

 

[Electric_Andy]

What speed are you paying for i.e. is it "up to 100mb/s" or similar? I was with Utility warehouse for 3 years, and was only getting 16mb/s through copper cable, but it still threw a decent signal upstairs even though the router was in the opposite corner of the lounge to where the stairs were. I have no experience with Sky though, but I am told not all company routers are equal.

I had a simialr problem in our new house, we are on 450mb/s with Virgin full fibre. Yet our conservatory (which is direct line of sight of the router albeit 10 metres away) fails to get any signal. We put in a TP links booster which just manages to deliver 2 or 3 mb/s to the conservatory so I can work on my laptop, but it's painful at times. I have no clue why it's so bad, when the same router (I took it with me from my old house) performed excellently throughout the old house and I had more download speed than I could shake a stick at..

If you own the house (or rent but you'l need landlord permission) I think it's a fairly straighforward job to route an ethernet cable out of one wall, around the house and back into another. It's what the previous owner of our house did, just drilled through the exterior wall and back in again, sealing up the holes with silicone

 

[Mike_P]

My WiFi signal upstairs is a bit ropey for some devices so I have powerline adapters for those with ethernet connections and a TP link extender which only needs to be switched on for the Roku in the spare room to watch YouTube while spinning on the folding bike like thingy. No issues with the power lines being on different ring mains

 

[iancity]

HI all, thank you so much for all the responses, much appreciated.

I have actually solved it though, another poster on a different thread said make sure you have not done something silly like have the router upside down or resting on a metal stand - well, about 6 months ago after having some problems with the speed I moved the router out of the corner of the room (where the line comes in) and rested the router on top of a metal speaker stand I had lying around. It never occurred to me that my serious issues have come since then - had no idea a metal stand would make any difference - have just put the router back where it was and has reduced packet loss form 100% to 1%