Extender? or Repeater? .. so confused

Post new topic   Reply to topic    DD-WRT Forum Index -> General Questions
Author Message
roman_legion
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 21 Feb 2007
Posts: 30

PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 4:07    Post subject: Extender? or Repeater? .. so confused Reply with quote
Hi guys,

I am running linksys 3200acm 2 routers, wds. Thank you, dd-wrt !!! no problems, however, my kids are bitchin' about the outside internet performance. My routers are great inside, but in the backyard arrghhh !!! Will a cheap ass extender work with the wds system? .. Should I just buy another router? .... greatly appreciate it if you can help me.

Andy
Sponsor
Alozaros
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 16 Nov 2015
Posts: 6407
Location: UK, London, just across the river..

PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:44    Post subject: Reply with quote
for better performance, use wired WAP...you can also use powerline adapters if so...
_________________
Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55179 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55303 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55363 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
blaser
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 525

PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 12:58    Post subject: Reply with quote
Just do repeater bridge, I have routers covering the whole house.
Also you can increase the power of the router, makes a big difference, I'm using 200 instead of the default 74.

_________________
Netgear R9000 main router
RAX80 as AP
msoengineer
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 21 Jan 2017
Posts: 1782
Location: Illinois Moderator

PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2020 21:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
blaser wrote:
Also you can increase the power of the router, makes a big difference, I'm using 200 instead of the default 74.


That's about the worst advice you can give if you want to properly extend wifi.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/the-ars-technica-semi-scientific-guide-to-wi-fi-access-point-placement/

Rule 2: Too much transmit power is a bug
The great thing about 2.4GHz Wi-Fi is the long range and effective penetration. The bad thing about 2.4GHz Wi-Fi is... the long range and effective penetration.

If two Wi-Fi devices within "earshot" of one another transmit on the same frequency at the same time, they accomplish nothing: the devices they were transmitting to have no way of unscrambling the signal and figuring out which bits were meant for them. Contrary to popular belief, this has nothing to do with whether a device is on your network or not—Wi-Fi network name and even password have no bearing here.

In order to (mostly) avoid this problem, any Wi-Fi device has to listen before transmitting—and if any other device is currently transmitting on the same frequency range, yours has to shut up and wait for it to finish. This still doesn't entirely alleviate the problem; if two devices both decide to transmit simultaneously, they'll "collide"—and each has to pick a random amount of time to back off and wait before trying to transmit again. The device that picks the lower random number gets to go first—unless they both picked the same random number, or some other device notices the clean air and decides to transmit before either of them.

This is called "congestion," and for most modern Wi-Fi users, it's at least as big a problem as attenuation. The more devices you have, the more congested your network is. And if they're using the same Wi-Fi channel, the more devices your neighbors have, the more congested both of your networks are—each of your devices can still congest with one another, and still have to respect airtime rules.

If your own router or access points support it, turning your transmission strength down can actually improve performance and roaming significantly—especially if you've got a mesh kit or other multiple-AP setup. 5GHz typically doesn't need to be detuned this way, since that spectrum already attenuates pretty rapidly—but it can work wonders for 2.4GHz.

A final note for those tempted to try "long-range" access points: a long-range AP can certainly pump its own signal hotter than a typical AP, and blast that signal a greater distance. But what it can't do is make your phone or laptop boost its signal to match. With this kind of imbalanced connection scenario, individual pieces of a website might load rapidly—but the whole experience feels "glitchy," because your phone or laptop struggles to upload the tens or hundreds of individual HTTP/S requests necessary to load each single webpage in the first place.

_________________
FORUM RULES

TIPS/TRICKS: Best QCA Wifi Settings | Latency tricks | QoS Port priority | NEVER USE MU-MIMO |
Why to NOT use MU-MIMO | Max Wifi Pwr by Country | Linux Wifi Pwr | AC MCS & AX MCS | QCA 5Ghz chnls to use | WIFI Freq WIKI | TFTP R7800 | Don't buy AX | IPERF3 How-To

[R9000]52396 nightly (Main Router)
[EA8500]43192 & 45493 (2xOffsite)
[R7800] resting
[WDR3600]BS 44715 (Offsite)
[A7v5]BS 43038 (Offsite+spare napping)
ATHF
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 14 Dec 2015
Posts: 774
Location: 127.0.0.1

PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:21    Post subject: Reply with quote
blaser wrote:
Just do repeater bridge, I have routers covering the whole house.
Also you can increase the power of the router, makes a big difference, I'm using 200 instead of the default 74.


Last I knew, you couldn't do that on the newer WRT series, hard coded in the chip. I may be wrong now, but you could get an RE9000 (I find it to be a great AP).

_________________
Tutorial for flashing WRT series
WRT Installation,Upgrade & Basic Setup–Cliff Notes
r52242: WRT3200ACM, WRT1200ACv1 & 1 Velop in bridge mode(IoT subnet), r52242 WRT1900ACv1 AP
Velop:2 WHW0101, RE6500, RE9000(AP)
Spectrum - 1000/50
SysLog Watcher 5, New security Onion box coming soon, Fingboxes, PiHoles, NEMS, Cacti, rpisurv
blkt
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 20 Jan 2019
Posts: 5660

PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:05    Post subject: Re: Extender? or Repeater? .. so confused Reply with quote
roman_legion wrote:
Will a cheap ass extender work with the wds system?
I don't recommend a cheap extender. If an Ethernet backhaul is possible I recommend EX7300 or EX7300v2, otherwise for pure wireless (tri-band, dual ssid, all traffic goes over 5 GHz backhaul so disable ARP spoofing protection) go with EX7500. Try to find one used in your area to save a lot of money (e.g. craigslist, offerup, ebay). Edit: RE9000, thanks ATHF. Also, see EX8000.
roman_legion wrote:
Should I just buy another router?
If you do, go with R7800 (easy tftp flash, newer chipset) or used EA8500 (if you can ttl serial flash). None of above is outdoor.
Display posts from previous:    Page 1 of 1
Post new topic   Reply to topic    DD-WRT Forum Index -> General Questions All times are GMT

Navigation

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You can attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum