Looking for advice...

[jester7677]

Looking for upgrade advice. I've done a bit of reading but I don't want to sway the jury. Would like to stay under $399

I currently have a Netgear WDNR3700 600N router in a 3000+ sq foot house, positioned at one end of it, in the corner room, of the rectangular house. Upside is it's on the middle floor, but I can't move it and I can't run wires at this point as that would require a large amount of money. All walls, and ceilings of all floors are dry walled. I moved the channels around, and I have moved the router around within the room where it is, as well as the Horizontal/Vertical positioning of the router....

The router is mainly used for Wifi. Right now we are experiencing a decent amount of signal quality/strength fluctuation and having to reboot the router twice a week. The far end of the house gets bad wifi. There are four of us in the house and it gets worse when we have guests. It is used by...

3 laptops (Newer and I believe they all have AC)
4 iphones (Newer)
3 ipads
2 xbox ones
1 TV
1 Direct TV system
Wifi Printer

 

[sm00thpapa]

Netgear R7800 $239.99

 

[System Error Message]

you could always get wireless AC.

Wires dont need a large amount of money. In terms of cost ethernet < powerline < wifi (cost for connecting 2 devices). So wifi is cheaper than powerline only when there are more devices involved but performance wise however it does stick too. You can run ethernet cables and put them in corners where those panels are.

You have to remember that tx power alone doesnt help. Wireless AC is newer so the chips are better. The rf design is important to consider too and that is what makes AC wifi routers having better range than older ones. Placement is also very important too.

 

[jester7677]

Netgear R7800 $239.99

You don't recommend the RT-AC88U over the Netgear?

System... I absolutely cannot afford the cost of running new wires. Everything is sealed up. It would require opening drywall and ceilings from the basement to the third floor.

The challenge I have with the powerline solution is I have three panels. The original, an add on, and yet another for the generator. It's a mess (that's quoting my trusted electrician) that I'm not going to fix until the generator needs to be replaced, which I pray is no time soon.

Thanks all!!!

 

[thiggins]

Multiple panels are not a problem if they are all behind the same distribution transformer. My home has two panels and I have no problem with powerline between outlets on different panels.

Changing to an AC1900 class router should provide some improvement, but may not improve things at the other end of the home, especially for 5 GHz.

If you go to 4x4, I would suggest AC2600 vs. AC3100/3150. QCA chipset has been out longer and more mature.

 

[jester7677]

Many thanks and I did read up on the R7800... looks like the first thing I'm going to try. If my son wants better, he can get to work and invest in the powerline option. He may change his needs or get to work...

 

[sm00thpapa]

You don't recommend the RT-AC88U over the Netgear?

System... I absolutely cannot afford the cost of running new wires. Everything is sealed up. It would require opening drywall and ceilings from the basement to the third floor.

The challenge I have with the powerline solution is I have three panels. The original, an add on, and yet another for the generator. It's a mess (that's quoting my trusted electrician) that I'm not going to fix until the generator needs to be replaced, which I pray is no time soon.

Thanks all!!!

Tim answered the question. I own the RT-AC88U but at $60.00 more over the R7800 it's hard to recommend for not much improvement.

 

[jester7677]

I have purchased the R7800, and so far, it's a tremendous improvement over the WDNR3700. 5G is usable from a much further distance, as is 2.4, and the speed is 175 Mbps, where it was 50 previously. Thanks again!

 

[sm00thpapa]

Awesome dude! Enjoy! Just make sure you have the latest firmware installed.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[System Error Message]

If you plan to get powerline get the AV2000, its the only decent powerline that is comparable to ethernet in performance (still not quite as good as gigabit ethernet from basement to 3rd floor) so if you dont need LAN performance than you can go with lower bandwidths as long as the powerline adapter supports multi frequency and multi user as in the future if you add better adapters they will start to interfere and the faster one will slow down.

 

[alphamatter]

Looking for upgrade advice. I've done a bit of reading but I don't want to sway the jury. Would like to stay under $399

I currently have a Netgear WDNR3700 600N router in a 3000+ sq foot house, positioned at one end of it, in the corner room, of the rectangular house. Upside is it's on the middle floor, but I can't move it and I can't run wires at this point as that would require a large amount of money. All walls, and ceilings of all floors are dry walled. I moved the channels around, and I have moved the router around within the room where it is, as well as the Horizontal/Vertical positioning of the router....

The router is mainly used for Wifi. Right now we are experiencing a decent amount of signal quality/strength fluctuation and having to reboot the router twice a week. The far end of the house gets bad wifi. There are four of us in the house and it gets worse when we have guests. It is used by...

3 laptops (Newer and I believe they all have AC)
4 iphones (Newer)
3 ipads
2 xbox ones
1 TV
1 Direct TV system
Wifi Printer

I was envisioning a Plug an Play whole house solution such as this one:
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/netgear-introduces-orbi-wi-fi-mesh-system.34294/

So that you can have the Primary Router replacing the Netgear WDNR3700 and a Satellite closer/next to your main cluster of Devices.

Then, you don't have any wiring to run and all the devices are happily connected with minimal setup on your part.