Router-ception - slow speeds and channel weirdness

Magus`

So here's the situation - I live in a two story house with the upper having been modified into an apartment. On the "first floor" I have my main router, a Linksys router which has 1 2.4Ghz and 2 5Ghz bands. In the upstairs apartment I have another (TP-LINK) router as the connection from the one downstairs is pretty thready. I am connecting that router to my first one through a wall adapter. Here's the issues I am facing:

1. The speeds from the upstairs router are abysmal. The connect is 200Mbits and I'm getting, maybe, 10 on a good day (download). Upload is oddly higher at ~15-20Mbits.

2. One of my 2 5Ghz bands has incredibly poor signal - to the point where unless something is direct LOS and within ~10 feet it will just vanish completely from the WiFi options. Of note, this band is forced into the lower channels while the one that doesn't suck is forced into higher channels.

So here's what I'm thinking, either -

1. I need to change some settings due to having one router being attached to another router.
2. The wall connection is bad because the wiring is probably not great.

Additionally, the Linksys router has band steering which, as far as I can tell, is supposed to bounce you between the two 5Ghz signals and use whatever is stronger. However, turning that on bounces me repeatedly to the 2.4Ghz band even when I forget the network to remove the set password in order to "force" it to remain on the 5Ghz channel. I assume it's because I'm sharing the password between the different bands that.. somehow.. it automatically remembers the password. As such I don't have band steering on even though it is suggested.

Finally, something that has happened with almost every router I have and think might just be my phone - I'll have moments where the connection to the internet will die. The connection to the router is fine and I can login to it, but I will get a ! next to my WiFi symbol. I thought maybe it was some sort of IP conflict but using a static IP hasn't fixed it.

I appreciate any help I can get.

Knight_

yea you're going to need to disable the routing on the second router. you probably have some double nat action happening which is making your network unhappy. you want to have it running as an access point. step by step from TP link: https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/417/

after you do that, i'd check to see the speed coming off the powerline adapter with an ethernet cable run straight in. that at least gets you an upper bound of what that upstairs network is capable of and lets you isolate the speed issues to some extent.

re: 5 ghz bands, i assume you either have interference on them or the layout of your house doesn't really cooperate with them. 5ghz is always an adventure, i personally use unifi enterprise APs which are pretty loud and getting signal through a single interior door is right at the limit, so if you want good 5ghz everywhere you need a whole lot of APs for a normal house, much more than you think.

band steering is supposed to push devices onto 5ghz, but it's eh. i've never really gotten it to work consistently.

Magus`

@Knight_ Ok, running into an issue where I'm getting Error Code 5008 when trying to set the IP address. It says the subnet is the same, which yes, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

According to the Linksys, the TP-Link has an IP address of 192.168.1.104. Trying to connect to that router through that IP doesn't work.

I can connect to the TP-Link via my phone/WiFi by using the standard 192.168.0.1 address (this address also does not work on the PC).

Also, to make sure I have the path correct - the TP-Link will be connected to by its LAN port and not WAN port, correct?

Edit: I can connect to the Linksys while utilizing the TP-Link's WiFi.

Mugsley

Yes, the TPLink should be using its LAN port. Also make sure you shut off DHCP at the TPLink (the guide should include those steps). You want the TPLink to be as dumb as possible. You'll also need to manually set the Subnet settings so wifi devices can talk properly with the Linksys.

If you can get a Wifi Analyzer app on your phone, it should help you track down crowded channels or possible interference. Beamforming has a different implementation on every device, but you should still be able to select the channels for each, 2.4, 5, 5.

I suspect you're getting a bit of interference/crosstalk between the two routers on 5 and it's either confusing devices that are trying to connect or both routers keep fighting over the devices.

Wifi still looks for the first connection, and not the best, so it's easy to see a situation where a device sees a weak 5GHz signal first and then drops and just keeps going in circles.

I can toss up a couple YT vids that helped me, if you'd like.

Finally, like was said previously, your wall adapters likely need replacing since they will be your speed bottleneck. Also look up the model of both routers to confirm neither one has only 100 Mbit ports instead of Gigabit ports. This was an issue for me at one point.

Mugsley

Ok. Here's the first vid:

https://youtu.be/J5QJb3O19zI

Second vid. Explains a bit the interference I think you're experiencing.

https://youtu.be/kf1mPd_ofhU

His home internet related videos are on the basic side but he does a great job of explaining how it all works.

Magus`

It was working yesterday but I can no longer connect to the second router via the set IP address or via WiFi. It's in the list but won't actually connect. It's like it stopped being an access point.

Edit: Started to work after resetting the router. Issue now is I can't seem to connect to one of the two 5Ghz bands on my main router. Guess it's not a huge issue but still weird.

They both have the same settings outside one being a high channel and one being a low. The high channel is the one that keeps giving my stuff authentication errors.

Edit: Gave up as it seems the poor connection is due to the wiring and not a whole lot we can do about that.

Knight_

which 5 ghz channels are you operating in? i assume you're in one of the wierd dfs frequencies.

Magus`

DFS?