New Wireless Setup

[yayCollie]

Hey everyone, I've posted before about having problems with my current setup. I've never really resolved anything, I get terrible link rates and performance out of what I have, and I gave up on those extra 2 ASUS routers I've had. I've been busy with college and I don't do much, besides sometimes in a blue moon download a game on steam.
Anyways, my mom said that she's going to put aside some money to upgrade our setup. My house is 2 stories and a basement, with our modem in the basement, we don't have any ethernet jacks wired through the house, but she might consider having that done. We've been using a older TPLink Mesh Network router and a parent router. I really don't know too much and as much as I wish I was an expert I'm not, but if there's things I should look into I'd be happy to.

I'm not sure what other info you guys would need, so let me know if there's anything else about the house you'd like to know for your responses. Also we get 1Gbps optic, which should be plenty (although I can only do 20Mbps taking up the entire bandwith) when downloading something (yeah it's bad).

The two paths I can go I guess, is one of purely wireless (which would kinda suck still), or if we can have a wired access point in my room maybe, which would be good (and maybe even a port in my brothers room as well since he games, and he's helping pay for this.

 

[tgl]

If you can run ethernet cable from your modem to where you put the wifi routers, it will be money well spent.

As to where to put the routers and how many you need ... how big is the house? What are the interior walls made of?

 

[yayCollie]

If you can run ethernet cable from your modem to where you put the wifi routers, it will be money well spent.

As to where to put the routers and how many you need ... how big is the house? What are the interior walls made of?

It's a average sized 4 bedroom house, with 2 floors and a basement, I think it's drywall or wood or something I don't know anything about that sorry.
I wouldn't say its a large house, It's just decently sized.

Also, I know that I don't want to buy ASUS routers, because I don't want to support that company again.

 

[L&LD]

With Asus being the best home router option out there, overall, you're limiting yourself to a distant second and worse. No matter what you buy.

Run a cable to the second floor for a GT-AX6000 or better and you're good for the next few years.

Or, take your chances (on performance, security, support, and longevity) with your non-Asus router choice.

 

[yayCollie]

With Asus being the best home router option out there, overall, you're limiting yourself to a distant second and worse. No matter what you buy.

Run a cable to the second floor for a GT-AX6000 or better and you're good for the next few years.

Or, take your chances (on performance, security, support, and longevity) with your non-Asus router choice.

That's unfortunate because I remember awhile ago they released a mobo that would fry your CPU's, and wouldn't do anything to compensate the consumers. When I tried getting better Routers a few years ago, the ASUS ones I got were fine and great for awhile, but ever since one update they stopped working, and I could never get to them to work as well after that (I tried switching to merlin cfw and didn't have much luck). If this is the best option for a consumer than I'll go with it, I was hoping there's something equivalent on the market.

Another thing, I learned that a majority of the consumer grade routers out there apparently have terrible security.

 

[L&LD]

You're conflating motherboards and routers. I'm talking about the latter.

As to your last sentence, you're correct. Except for Asus. They stand head and shoulders above all other consumer routers.

 

[Tech9]

Also we get 1Gbps optic

Nothing with wireless backhaul will provide 1Gbps to clients across the network. If you want easy button solution - Google Nest Wifi, Amazon eero, TP-Link Deco... Qualcomm based "mesh" sets with Pro and Tri-Band as potentially higher performance options with dedicated backhaul. What will work best for your place though - no one here knows. With no proper network planning and no wires you have to buy and try. Security is okay for home use.

 

[tgl]

I won't argue with @L&LD 's opinion that Asus makes the best all-in-one wireless routers. But you don't have to buy an AIO. Think about a wired-only router connected to your fiber modem, and then a couple of plain wireless access points (not routers) to provide wifi service. APs are cheaper than routers (for the same grade of wireless service) because they don't need as beefy a CPU. The main reason I'm suggesting this is that it's not real clear to me how many APs you need, given the vagueness of your statements about house size etc. If it turns out you need more than two, you will be ahead of the game by not buying three or more complete routers.

Your existing "parent router" might serve fine as the main router --- just turn off its wireless radio and run ethernet cable to it from the APs. If it turns out to be a speed bottleneck and you care about that, you could replace it later. Then your new investment is just cabling and a couple of APs. (I would not buy more than two until/unless you find that two can't provide coverage of the whole house.)

There is not all that much in plain APs in consumer wireless gear; they'd rather sell you AIO routers. However there's lots of choices in small-business labels. I've had good results with Zyxel, and other people speak highly of Ubiquiti, TPLink's Omada line, and others. You should be able to get a decent AC-class AP for under $100, or an AX-class one for under $150. Be sure to get units that can be manually configured using an HTTP GUI. The main gotcha in this area for home use is that the manufacturers are targeting outfits that might have dozens of APs so they'd want a central management setup, and so the mfrs are eager to sell you controllers, cloud management services, etc. For a couple of APs you don't need the complexity or cost of that.

 

[Tech9]

We already discussed options in two separate threads. Nothing much changed in few months time. @yayCollie, why asking the same questions over and over again? No one here knows details about your place. You are the one to solve your Wi-Fi issues. If you can't - call for professional help.

 

[yayCollie]

I won't argue with @L&LD 's opinion that Asus makes the best all-in-one wireless routers. But you don't have to buy an AIO. Think about a wired-only router connected to your fiber modem, and then a couple of plain wireless access points (not routers) to provide wifi service. APs are cheaper than routers (for the same grade of wireless service) because they don't need as beefy a CPU. The main reason I'm suggesting this is that it's not real clear to me how many APs you need, given the vagueness of your statements about house size etc. If it turns out you need more than two, you will be ahead of the game by not buying three or more complete routers.

Your existing "parent router" might serve fine as the main router --- just turn off its wireless radio and run ethernet cable to it from the APs. If it turns out to be a speed bottleneck and you care about that, you could replace it later. Then your new investment is just cabling and a couple of APs. (I would not buy more than two until/unless you find that two can't provide coverage of the whole house.)

There is not all that much in plain APs in consumer wireless gear; they'd rather sell you AIO routers. However there's lots of choices in small-business labels. I've had good results with Zyxel, and other people speak highly of Ubiquiti, TPLink's Omada line, and others. You should be able to get a decent AC-class AP for under $100, or an AX-class one for under $150. Be sure to get units that can be manually configured using an HTTP GUI. The main gotcha in this area for home use is that the manufacturers are targeting outfits that might have dozens of APs so they'd want a central management setup, and so the mfrs are eager to sell you controllers, cloud management services, etc. For a couple of APs you don't need the complexity or cost of that.

This is great info, I collected some more info as well, I think it may be fine for me to use my older equipment as just AP's maybe? I think ultimately if I can convince my mom to get wired ports on the first floor and second floor that would be for the best. I don't believe my Parent router is a bottleneck but I forget if it's lower then 1Gbps.

I have a AC68U that I used as AP, and a AC3100, I also have a trio of older TPLink-Deco's (older, not sure when). If we could switch to wired on both me and my brothers computers we'd be happy, and then setting up at least one or two of access points (1 for both floors?) should work? I had issues before with trying to use the same SSID on all the AP's which I thought wouldn't be a problem, but that could've been because I was trying to use everything as a mesh network.

I'll need to look into getting someone to quote us on doing wiring, I've never done more than pulling wire across office ceilings for a company I worked for once.

I think I'd upgrade the AP's regardless.

Thanks!