WiFi 6 to replace Home Plugs

[MrWiFi]

Hi Forum

I live in a 100 square metre (about 1050 square feet) apartment and I use Devolo Homeplugs to network everything. I get around 120 to 150mbps. I have a gigabit fibre internet connection and I have two PCs on the network, one is my media PC in the lounge and the other is the PC in my room which is also a Plex server which is accessed by the PC in the lounge. I also have a pfsense Netgate firewall with 4 gigabit ports on it which is located exactly in the middle of the apartment

Lately I have been finding that streaming video from the Plex server in my room to the lounge has been buffering. Also, now that the ISP has upgraded me for free from 250mbps to gigabit I thought now is a good time to upgrade my network.

I have ordered two WiFi 6 PCIe cards for both PCs but the one Devolo plug I have (1200ac) only supports WiFi 5 and I get about 300mbps when I do a speed test from my smartphone. I'd like to replace all the Devolo Home Plugs with WiFi 6. The distance from the PC in my room the where the access point will be is about 3m. From the lounge to the access point is about 8m. There are no walls inbetween the PCs and access point.

Can anyone suggest a WiFi 6 access point that I can connect to my existing pfsense firewall (I don't want to replace the pfsense box) that will give me at least 400 to 600mbps for the 2 PCs I use in the apartment of this size? The closer to gigabit the better but as a minimum I would like it to be at least 400+mbps. I've looked online but the options are overwhelming. I don't need any kind of AV scanning, parental controls etc. I literally just need an access point that can connect two WiFi 6 machines and connect to a gigabit interface on the pfsense firewall.

Hopefully I haven't left out anything important, if I have please ask and I will answer. I haven't decided on budget yet but will spend a bit more if it gives good results!

 

[L&LD]

With the smaller area of your apartment and the expected upgrade of the Wi-Fi adaptors on the PC's, throw away the PLA's (the Devolo's) and use a single RT-AX86U instead.

You should be hitting your ISP speeds or very close to them set up like so.

 

[MrWiFi]

With the smaller area of your apartment and the expected upgrade of the Wi-Fi adaptors on the PC's, throw away the PLA's (the Devolo's) and use a single RT-AX86U instead.

You should be hitting your ISP speeds or very close to them set up like so.

Thanks for the reply! This router seems more geared towards gamers (I'm not one) so is there a cheaper/non gamer model I should consider?

 

[L&LD]

There is no such thing as a 'gamer' router.

Cheaper, yes. As performant? No.

This model should be cheaper and faster than the highly regarded RT-AX88U, FYI.

 

[MrWiFi]

There is no such thing as a 'gamer' router.

Cheaper, yes. As performant? No.

This model should be cheaper and faster than the highly regarded RT-AX88U, FYI.

Got it! I had a look at the RT-AX88U as well and its only £20 more, is it worth getting this instead? I don't mind paying the extra

 

[L&LD]

The RT-AX86U is faster (lower latency). Both are great routers.

 

[MrWiFi]

The RT-AX86U is faster (lower latency). Both are great routers.

The thing I like about the RT-AX86U is that it was released in July 2020 (so its recent) but the RT-AX88U was released over 2 years ago. Am leaning now towards the RT-AX86U now, hmmmm!

 

[MrWiFi]

Will I have an issue mixing WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 devices with either of these routers?

 

[thiggins]

It sounds like the Devolos are access points? What are the make/models? Why were you using them?

What is the make/model of the WiFi6 PCIE adapter?

What are your apartment walls made of?

Can you locate the router central to the area you are trying to cover?

 

[MrWiFi]

It sounds like the Devolos are access points? What are the make/models? Why were you using them?

What is the make/model of the WiFi6 PCIE adapter?

What are your apartment walls made of?

Can you locate the router central to the area you are trying to cover?

I have 3 Devolo Home Plugs, two are just Home Plugs (1200 model with no wifi) and the third one is the 1200ac which is used for WiFi. I used them because in the previous place I lived the WiFi was awful/unusable. They were fine with 8mb ADSL but I am now on gigabit fibre so the Devolos are a real bottleneck and causing an issue with streaming with Plex at times depending on the content. I really can't complain about the Devolos as they have been fantastic and I have had them for years but its time for a change.

I've just ordered one Ziyituod AX200 Wifi 6 PCIe Card to try with the existing 1200ac Devolo access point but would want to use them with a new access point/router when purchased. I'm mostly concerned about the speed between my PC and the lounge PC as well as getting faster speeds from my PC when downloading from the internet. Not worried about the other devices like my smartphone and kindle for example.

Apartment walls are a mixture of concrete and chipboard...mostly chipboard.

The router can/will be right in the middle of the apartment.

I managed to find a floorplan of the place, hope this helps with my situation, I have labelled where the PCs and router are or will be located:

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the excellent detail of your reply. I think your setup has a good chance of success for a single router located next to your firewall machine in the entry hallway.

The WiFi adapters are two-stream, which should be able to support your target 400 Mbps throughput if they can get a strong signal level. But even if they don't, the throughput you get will be much improved over what you have now.

For best chance of success, your router should have four streams on 5 GHz. Both the AX88U and AX86U do. The four streams provide a bit more receive gain, which helps improve throughput. I think the AX86U will be fine.

And there should be no problem mixing WiFi5 and 6 devices.

Let us know how things turn out.

 

[MrWiFi]

Thanks @thiggins for the helpful and quick reply!

Currently I max out at 120mbps on average (sometimes it goes a little higher to maybe 150) with the Devolos. I think the AX86U is going to be the router to go with.

I am unsure of the WiFi cards though for the PCs, will the Ziyituod AX200 Wifi 6 PCIe be ok? It was only £21 but I can still cancel the order as they haven't shipped it yet. Seems to get good reviews for a WiFi 6 card but I want to make sure it will be ok with the AX86U. 400mbps would be great but if there's a better card/solution to get closer to gigabit speeds then I am all ears.

Appreciate the answers and input, is really helping me decide how to approach this

 

[degrub]

for the PC cards, i would make sure a remote antenna is possible or included with the card so you can get better line of sight to the AP.

 

[L&LD]

I didn't realize that the AX200 'cards' were (desktop) PCIe devices. I would not put those in use. Too dependent on too many variables to make them a viable solution in my experience. Not to mention they are specifically and narrowly focused too (at a comparatively high cost).

In their place, I would not open up the computer(s) at all, (I thought that you were upgrading laptops with Intel AX200 cards instead), rather, I would use (one or two) used routers in Media Bridge mode instead. An RT-AC56U or better will give you better reliability and performance than an internal desktop PCIe card will. Simply connect your computers to the Media Bridge router via an Ethernet cable and really open up their performance.

If you do this and can also use a single AP in MB mode and can also wire both computers to this AP, you'll have the fastest network possible.

Even if you can only wire the PLEX PC to the main router, it will be a huge improvement. Making a few runs of Ethernet cable will be time well spent here (and with less 'flakey' solutions needed in the long run too).

 

[thiggins]

The only AX client card I know of is the Intel AX200. It's used on the ASUS PCIe AX adapters and it likely what's at the heart of the no-name card you are considering. It's probably an AX200 bundled with an M2 to PCIe adapter. In fact, that's what the product description claims
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08F7J8G48/?tag=snbforums-20

You should be able to use standard Intel AX200 drivers with it.

If the card doesn't work you can try @L&LD's media bridge suggestion if you are ok with the additional expense.

 

[L&LD]

A router can be used and re-purposed to whatever is needed in the future, even if only handed down to someone that only needs yesterday's tech.

A desktop PCIe adaptor is much more specific in use and therefore less worthy of my time spent to keep it working over varying OS versions, drivers, and other interactions (software and physical) that they're inherently limited by.

An older router such as the RT-AC56U is not as expensive as these cards are. And offers much better reliability in my experience. Without the issue of where to best place the entire computer to better align the (hidden) antennae. Soon, I can see the RT-AX58U being the 'go-to' router for Media Bridge mode use for AX-class main routers. This will be a 'standard' soon and allow for greater than 1GbE speeds over the air throughout the home when paired with an optimally placed AX-class router.

 

[MrWiFi]

I'm back to report back on the testing I did today The PCIe WiFi 6 card arrived today and I installed it in my PC and downloaded/installed the latest Intel AX200 drivers. Once done I did a few speed tests using the "Fast" website and I am now getting between 300 and 440mbps (I don't think my broadband has been upgraded to gigabit so I am on the 500mbps speed currently).

I think this is a fantastic result considering I maxed out at 120 to 150mbps with the Devolo Home Plug! I'm still using the old Devolo 1200ac Home Plugs access point so obciously this is the bottleneck. Signal strength seems pretty good too and its connecting on 5GHz:

I am going to order a second Wifi 6 card today and when it arrives I will install it in the media PC in the lounge and see what the results are from that machine as it is further away from the Devolo Wifi access point.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the update. Good to hear it is working out for you so far. Guess you'll save some money if you don't have to upgrade to the AX86U!

 

[MrWiFi]

Thanks for the update. Good to hear it is working out for you so far. Guess you'll save some money if you don't have to upgrade to the AX86U!

Yes! I really REALLY like my pfsense Netgate appliance firewall so am reluctant to give it up at this point. Even though it must be 4 or 5yrs old it is fanastic/secure/stable and never needs a reboot unlease you update pfsense itself.

I'll post some more results when the second Wifi card arrives from the lounge PC!

FYI: I emailed Devolo support asking them about Wifi 6 Home Plug products and there aren't any but they are working on a new product range but they couldn't give me an ETA...

 

[thiggins]

You can still use your Netgate as the primary router. WiFi routers can always be configured as access points. There are plenty of less expensive AX routers to choose from if you want to dip a toe into full AX performance.