Simple access point LAN mess

[steford]

Hi all,
I'm a long time lurker, enjoy the forums and have never had a need to post but I'm now at a complete loss with my network issues.

I run a Netgear R7800 as my main router (connected to a cable modem - Virgin UK) and have a Netgear R6400 as an access point which was connected over Powerline adaptors. Both have 2.4 and 5GHz WiFi using the same SSID on different channels. This worked fine until I noticed some dropouts in connectivity when browsing using WiFi or wired when connected to the access point. Further ping testing showed packet loss at random times - I put this down to the Powerlines and changed to a 20m CAT6 cable.

This also worked fine for a while and then the same thing began to happen. I have tried stock, Voxel, DD-WRT and OpenWRT on the R7800 and stock, DD-WRT and FreshTomato on the R6400 - all have the same issues. I am currently using DD-WRT on both.

In my current testing I'm using different SSIDs on each router to try to isolate the issue. If I connect to the R6400, even if I can get internet access, I can't ping the R7800 from it (using command tool). If I connect to the R7800 sometimes I can ping the R6400 from it, sometimes I can't. Sometimes connected to the R6400 I can't view the web interface of DD-WRT. It's a total mess and totally unreliable as it stands. I used the standard DD-WRT setup for access points.

Today I picked up a cheap ASUS RT-AC57U to play with and exactly the same issues exist with it as an access point in that it sometimes can and sometimes can't be pinged from the R7800 and vice versa. Sometimes I get web pages loading instantly if connected to it, sometimes slowly and sometimes not at all.

I tried plugging the R6400 directly into the R7800 with a shorter cable last week and it seemed to work so I thought a possible issue was my cable - I put one of the RJ45s on it myself - so I redid that with no effect.

My final thoughts to try to solve this:

1) Further testing without the 20m cable. Replace the entire 20m cable perhaps? Unlikely to be a cable issue?
2) Replace the R7800 with the R6400 or AC-57U temporarily - it could be an R7800 port problem perhaps but everything else wireless or wired to it works fine and I've changed the port used many times.

Sorry for the long post. I'm really at a loss. Thanks for any help.

 

[coxhaus]

If the short cable fixed your problem then I would say you are on to the fix.

 

[steford]

If the short cable fixed your problem then I would say you are on to the fix.

Thanks. Could I really have problems with the powerlines and cable though? Possible but unlikely. The plot thickens:

R6400 AP connected via short cable to R7800 - no issues. I then plugged the ASUS AP into the R6400 via the long cable (and on different IPs) and I get a ping spike every 30s or so to both APs when pinging from the R7800.

I then plugged the R6400 AP directly into the R7800 (short cable) and the ASUS directly into the R7800 (long cable) with no ping issues on either.

The only other thing that changed here was that my satellite receiver was unplugged from the R7800 to free up a port.

This makes me think:
1) It could be the satellite box? Unlikely and I see nothing in the logs to suggest an issue
2) R6400 has issues when something is plugged in to a LAN port

Further testing required.

UPDATE: The R6400 back on the long cable and ASUS on the short cable, both directly into the R7800 gives no issues. I'm basically back to where I was with the R6400 and all is fine. I don't get this at all.