WiFi Router

[Richard]

As I described in an earlier thread, my Orcon supplied modem is a NF4V Genius. This is proving to have insufficient guts to communicate with a Chromecast my son gave me. Am I able to connect to it a separate router with a bit more power, and will I need to change any settings to do this? Any recommendations on brand?

Or do I just need a WiFi range extender, which may or may not work.

[Richard]

Bump!!!

[paulw]

I just went an bought a TP Link WiFi router and put it in the same room as the Chromecast and solved the problem..

[1101]

"insufficient guts" ?????? , does that mean low bandwidth/througput, dropouts, too many wifi connectons for it, interference issues, low wifi signal strength problems caused by walls etc
Do some intenet speedtests , via wifi, from various part of the house, including near the TV & near the wifi router

Buy a wifi powerline kit. Usually does the job, not allways though , you wont know without buying & trying.
assuming its just a wall/range issue .....

[Richard]

I'm pretty sure it is a wall/range issue, or low signal strength. While we are on a 100/20 plan, I can get only about 30Mbps on a laptop, which is through two walls. I will try the laptop near the Chromecast and see what I get.

[1101]

I'm pretty sure it is a wall/range issue, or low signal strength. While we are on a 100/20 plan, I can get only about 30Mbps on a laptop, which is through two walls. I will try the laptop near the Chromecast and see what I get.

only 30Mbs
I dream of the day I'll get only 30. Another 2 years before I can get fibre , till then I'm stuck with 10Mbs Max .
30Mbs is still pretty good speed across wifi through some walls .

How many connect to that wifi access point ?

[Richard]

Only the laptop usually. The kids connect if they are at home as guests, so there may be up to 3 more.

[Chilling_Silence]

The WiFi range on the NF4V is pretty poor.
They're also prone to falling over under load...

Go invest in a quality router like the TP-Link Archer C7, and run Gargoyle on it for reliability (It doesn't work on the C2 / C5 etc).

The Archer C7 range is great, even on 802.11n, even better on 802.11ac, and there's always the option of 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz too!
Mines in my living room, and I can speedtest to fast.com in the Kitchen and still get 250mbps+

[Richard]

Thanks Chill, that sounds what I am looking for, and the PB Tech price seems pretty reasonable. Will I need to change any internal settings to get it to replace the NF4V and connect to Orcon?

[Chilling_Silence]

Yes, you'll want to disable the WiFi on the NF4V, but still use that as your main "Modem". The C7 doesn't do VDSL2, so you've still gotta keep your NF4V for that purpose, to basically get VDSL2 into your network.

Depending on how you set it up, the easiest is going to be if you plug the "WAN" in the Archer C7 into your NF4V, and set it up to use "DHCP" to get an IP on the WAN.

Then, change the LAN IP range on the Archer C7 to be something different, coz it won't like it being 192.168.1.0/24 on both the WAN side as well as the LAN side.