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Wifi Extender and Mesh - Configuration Tweak

I have a mesh wireless system with outlying nodes that do not support an ethernet jack. To get around this, and avoiding hardwiring, I installed the commonly suggested TP Link Wifi Extender and connected my Antipodes server to it with an ethernet cable. 

Over time I noticed some instability in my network and wifi bandwidth was diminished for my house. Also, the wireless speed through the extender was like 5Mbps, and I had issues with the occasional dropout. I started doing some testing, and one of the tests was to unplug the extender, voile, speed returned on the main network.

Doing some research and looking at configuration of the extender I discovered that DHCP was configured for the extender, making it a DHCP server as well as my router. Research stated to disable DHCP and set the IP for the extender to a fixed IP address on your main network.

Zing! Full speed on my network, 50Mbps on the extender. 

These extenders are super handy, but as I discovered they can cause some problems if they are not configured correctly. Check yours if you are using one.

 

zlone
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
7,944 posts
 

I feel like this is another cure for wellness this TP Link thingy. 
I won’t be exploring it. Totally cool with my current setup. 

zlone OP
1,348 posts
 

@audphile1  I feel like this is another cure for wellness this TP Link thingy. 
I won’t be exploring it. Totally cool with my current setup. 

I wouldn't use it myself if it was more convenient to run a direct connection. It is a convenient solution for my situation.

 

testpilot
1,019 posts
 

Please note, if you are using the TP Link wifi extender that uses your existing power line to transmit the wifi signal to remote areas in your home, it will inject noise into your power lines that can be picked up sensitive audio components - especially phono pre amps etc.  

erik_squires
17,549 posts
 

Want to give a shout out to Asus.  Their AiMesh ecosystem seamlessly handles adding nodes with/without Ethernet backhaul.  I had a TP-Link extender and switched due to the TP-Link having only 100Mbps Ethernet.  Not all TP-Link range extenders do this, I wrongly assumed since it claimed 600 Mbps wifi speeds it would include 1 Gb Ethernet.  My bad. 

The big issue was how easily the Asus router accepted the Asus node into the fold. Night and day difference in ease of configuration. 

Not sure why the OP is logically separating mesh nodes from range extenders.  Just have to put a mesh node inside the transmission radius, and voila, your range is extended. 

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