Odd Wifi

My sister has been having normal internet service that her son had connected a few years back with a Cable Modem and a Netgear RangeMaxx router.
The router was installed at the time of installation but only her PC was connected in the bedroom where the Modem and router was installed.
She called me to help connect a a new Sharp HDTV with internet option so her husband could watch Netflix.

I set up the TV for Netflix and everything went great except when you try to access the internet the signal strenth says 5%. Her son picked up a Belkin ranger extender and plugged it in the kitchen on the TV side of the house 18 feet away from the router.
The signal on the internet jumped to 80%, sounds great but Netflix keeps streaming to 25% then 55% then 75% then the movie begins to play for 30 seconds and starts the download cycle stream again.
The Router is 18 feet from the Rangeextender thru 1 wall to the kitchen and oped line of site 20 more feet to the TV.
The distance from the router to the TV is less than 50' and has a problem withthe streaming.
So, she ran to Bestbuy and picked up a better Netgear router that has 900-1300 speed which the salesman said would be better.
The problem is the same results as the old router and extender.

Neither Netgear router has external antennas, Any ideas?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Hello,

Did you remove the extender when installing the new router? Those typically destroy wifi performance.

Also, what specific TV is it? Some of them vary and would only include 2.4 GHz radios or similar.
 
The extender was not installed until we got sorry results with the second router. The router was setup with dual bands, 2.4 and 5. Both bands are available with line of site from the router but behind 1 wall, the kitchen, 18 feet from the router, only half the signal from either band is available and not always. The 2.4 band will drift off and on.

My wireless router in my home goes thru 3 walls and another 30 feet to my wifes PC and another wall to our bedroom, which the signal is still good there also.

The TV is a Sharp, so called Smart TV, I don't have the model number here and the wireless signal with the extender is 80% but Netflix still drags.

I have not delt withcable modem much, maybe a new modem from Cox?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Do you have any neighboring SSIDs or a lot of surrounding wifi networks?

Nope as far as speed, nope let me know if you can get a 10 gigabit router. lol
This is straying off topic, but you still didn't address my statement. What would you be streaming that necessitates that bitrate.

I can probably push more traffic over wireless than you have internet bandwidth.
 

Geoff

VIP Member
Nope as far as speed, nope let me know if you can get a 10 gigabit router. lol
Do you have a 10GB NIC on your PC? That's normal for core switching and servers, but client devices don't have over a 1Gbps NIC in 99.99999% of cases.

With 802.11ac Wave 2, you could theoretically get faster speeds than traditional gigabit wired assuming you have a 4x4 spatial stream device, running at 160MHz, and the wireless AP is using 2.5/5Gbps ethernet. And of course assuming you are the only device on that AP utilizing the network.
 
Several of us have determined that the two netgear routers she tried without external antennas, is the problem. My nephew from Lake Charles LA, has a house twice as big and he has no wifi issues in any room, but he uses a router with 4 external antennas
 

Geoff

VIP Member
Several of us have determined that the two netgear routers she tried without external antennas, is the problem. My nephew from Lake Charles LA, has a house twice as big and he has no wifi issues in any room, but he uses a router with 4 external antennas
While the 4 external antennas do make a difference, it's not going to be a dramatic difference. The reasoning for him not having an issue could simply be due to the placement of the wireless router, and if his house is a different type of construction. Older houses are much worse for WiFi.
 
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