Improving throughput in basement. Replacing R7800 (with Banana Pi R3?)

[emilio]

I'm looking to improve the wireless performance in my basement. I'm unable to run cable and the router can't be moved either, the only options I'm looking at is buying a new router or mesh system.
I currently have an R7800 running OpenWRT and I've upped the transmit power to 30dBm. The router is on the ground floor in my living room and in my basement office I currently get around 220mb with my desktops built in wifi adapter (mt7921e) via 5g.

My ISP provides a 1gb connection and I'd like to make more use of it in the basement. What would be the best solution to improve the wifi speeds in my basement?
Is it better to just buy a new wifi 6e router and use my motherboards wifi, or should I get a mesh system and then connect my desktop via ethernet to one of the nodes?

I was looking at Amazon eero 6e. However if I can achieve similar performance to this with just a router I'd rather buy something I can put custom firmware on.
Any suggestions?

 

[SallyBrown]

I had a R7800 with Voxel for years until upgrading to an Asus RT AX88U a few days ago. It works fine with ax at 160 Mhz. The R7800 was most stable at 40 Mhz, the 160 option barely worked. I replaced it because it was slow with all the wifi devices we now have. Plus, I've used Merlin, it's excellent. Not sure about OpenWRT, never tried it.

Speed is whatever you can get without disconnects. The 300 Mbs wifi ac I was getting with the 7800 was plenty fast enough, just the ability of the routher to share with multiple devices could have been better. My 1Gbs plan gives me 600-800 Mbs; not uncommon.

Routers are getting faster, yeah, but I'd bet for most users ac is fast enough. Maybe upgrade your desktop's card and see if the 7800 performs better. If not, a new wifi router. The one I have is excellent. Merlin will go on most Asus routers. Personally, I'd go with something proven vs. pioneering new tech unless there's a good reason to do so.

JMO but simpler is better unless you're a dedicated tweaker. Will you remember what you did six months from now? Ethernet's the simplest but not cool..

 

[emilio]

Thanks for the reply.

Tinkering doesn't bother me, I'm a software developer so I really don't mind messing around in the terminal. However I don't know anything about the hardware/wireless/EE side of it. Is a mesh system theoretically better because the backhaul between them would be 4x4 rather than my wifi cards 2x2? Then I can just plug my desktop in via ethernet to one of the mesh nodes? Does that even matter?
The wireless performance in the rest of my house is fine, however I do most of my work in the basement on my desktop so I'm really just looking to see what the best option is for getting more throughput via wifi in that one spot. I know it'd be better to just run a cable, but it's not an option unfortunately.

I saw the Banana Pi R3 mentioned on the OpenWRT forums. Is the hardware on this better than just buying an off the shelf router?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004886608696.html

AW7916-NPD Wi-Fi 6E AX3000 Mini PCIe Module - AsiaRF

AW7916-NPD Wi-Fi 6E module -advanced Mini PCIe Module - supports Wi-Fi 6E 3000 and dual concurrent bands (DBDC) by Mediatek MT7916AN.

asiarf.com

 

[bibikalka]

...
Is a mesh system theoretically better because the backhaul between them would be 4x4 rather than my wifi cards 2x2? Then I can just plug my desktop in via ethernet to one of the mesh nodes? Does that even matter?
The wireless performance in the rest of my house is fine, however I do most of my work in the basement on my desktop so I'm really just looking to see what the best option is for getting more throughput via wifi in that one spot. I know it'd be better to just run a cable, but it's not an option unfortunately.
...

It sounds like you just need a high performance wireless bridge. So grab the cheapest used 4x4 (or 3x3) AC router, and set it up as a wireless bridge to your main one. Plug in your basement computer into this new router with 1Gb cable. This will be as good as it gets for you without running a cable. No mesh can make it faster.

I am in a similar spot, I don't want to run a cable from my router location to one of my computers with a g (!!!) 2.4Ghz card (54Mbs rate). So I had a wireless bridge (Tomato on Belkin F7D3302/7302) for a while, with the computer wired into it - got the speed to be ~90 Mbs sustained rate, close to 100Mbs ethernet.

Since getting another Asus - I replaced the bridging Belkin with an AiMesh node. I figured this bridge (AiMesh node now) may as well provide stronger WiFi for the electricity it's consuming.

 

[bibikalka]

So I just tested my fast computer via its WiFi, or with 1Gb cable to the AiMesh node (AC68u) which is probably good 40 ft away from the AiMesh router (AC86u).

Both tests get my max ISP rate of 360 Mbps. I guess the air channel between the AiMesh routers is fast enough for that.

You could grab a couple of Asus AX68u routers, seem on sale from $90 from time to time. They have 3x3 radio, but AX vs AC might help with the speed between these 2. Or just get 1 of these, and test it as a wireless bridge to see what it gets. If needed, buy the 2nd one later.

P.S. Just to add, the router shows 866.7 Mbps connection from the laptop's WiFi card to the router.

 

[emilio]

So I just tested my fast computer via its WiFi, or with 1Gb cable to the AiMesh node (AC68u) which is probably good 40 ft away from the AiMesh router (AC86u).

Both tests get my max ISP rate of 360 Mbps. I guess the air channel between the AiMesh routers is fast enough for that.

You could grab a couple of Asus AX68u routers, seem on sale from $90 from time to time. They have 3x3 radio, but AX vs AC might help with the speed between these 2. Or just get 1 of these, and test it as a wireless bridge to see what it gets. If needed, buy the 2nd one later.

P.S. Just to add, the router shows 866.7 Mbps connection from the laptop's WiFi card to the router.

Thanks man. I think I'm gonna do exactly what you suggest and buy a router and put one of them in bridge mode in my basement.