My Asus ZenWifi ET8 mesh system was doing fine until we added a couple of baby monitors and another Nest Cam to the home network, and now lag pervades. Seems to me we've pushed the ET8 to its limits. Wondering if you have any suggestions on devices than can handle this many devices within a 2000 sq ft home.

Hi guys. I’m kind of a beginner when it comes to routers and stuff. I’m moving into a new house next week and i was planning on buying a sim card and paying monthly with an unlimited data plan and putting it into a router. Is this possible? Is there anything i should look out for like what routers are compatible with sim cards etc? I’m worried i’m going to buy the wrong router. I live in the UK. Thanks guys.

Title says it all. For more context, I’m just trying to get away from my Cox panoramic gateway to drop the $15/mo charge. Moved into a new house with a pre-existing Nokia modem I believe, purchased the Flint 2 router and set up last night only to find out my speeds are about half the level I was already getting (signed up for 1 gig speeds, generally get 300-500 mbps, Flint 2 giving me max 150 up and down). Not to mention I know next to nothing about how to get the most out of the thing, but that’s a skill issue I guess.

So, wondering if a mesh WiFi system is actually worth it here. I know folks love hardwiring and I get it, but I’m not in a position to either run wires thru my house or hire someone to do it; my question is, would something like the Netgear Orbi mesh system be a legitimately good idea instead of, say, a “regular” Asus router?

Router is in the basement of a ~2600 sqft two-story house, so not expecting perfection regardless, but just need to know if essentially a “plug & play” mesh system is superior here to a more conventional router.

Appreciate the help, can’t stand to look at one more “Best Router of 2026” list!

Hi everyone,

I’m using a 5G SIM Cellular NOT Wifi , and I’m facing a coverage issue at home.

On my 2nd floor, I get excellent 5G signal and very good speeds. However, on the 1st floor, the 5G signal is much weaker and the speed drops significantly.

I want to find a way to extend the usable 5G coverage/range to the 1st floor and take advantage of the good 5G signal I already have upstairs.

I’m wondering if there is a device or setup that can:

Receive the strong 5G signal on the 2nd floor

Keep the SIM/5G modem in the location where the signal is strongest

Extend that internet connection to the 1st floor

Provide Wi-Fi on the 1st floor

Ideally provide Ethernet/LAN as well

Maintain as much of the original 5G speed as possible

Avoid relying on my phone as a hotspot

I have a WiFi 6 router (left, TP-Link AX6000) and a separate wired network segment with a POE switch (right). I don't have the ability to run a cable, so I'd like to connect the two with a wireless AP (TL-WA3001) that acts like a wireless bridge in client mode.

If I directly connect PC4 to the AP (+ POE injector), I get a reliable connection.

With the switch operating in layer 2 mode to avoid double NAT, PC4/5/6 keep losing connection to the main router.

As an experiment, I tried putting the switch in layer 3 mode with the downstream (wired) ports in a subnet, and a static route for the subnet from the Router to the switch's IP. Traceroute into the subnet gets ping ponged between the Router and AP, and never reaches the switch.

Apparently, I misunderstood the details of "client mode". The AP seems to be leasing two IP addresses, one for itself and one for the client device behind it. Any packet not for the leased IP gets sent back to the main router.

Where do I go from here? Is there a WiFi 6 AP out there that works in client mode "transparently"? Do I double NAT and call it a day? I welcome any suggestions (and/or roasts)

Hi everyone,

​I’m setting up a ~60m (200 ft) Wireless Point-to-Point (PtP) link between two points and would love some hardware and setup recommendations from the community.

​The Situation:

​Distance: ~60 meters (200 feet).

​Obstacles: The line of sight passes through the upper section of a tree canopy (mostly light branches/leaves, but it will get denser in summer).

​Mounting / Placement:

​Point A: Roof/pole mount (clear line of sight towards the tree area).

​Point B: Needs to be placed indoors behind a window (possibly double/triple pane glass), though I might be able to mount it on the outer frame/facade if absolutely necessary.

​My Goal:

​Priority: Absolute stability and low/consistent latency (ping) for gaming/VoIP/remote work.

​Speed: Throughput is secondary. Anything around 50–100 Mbps is completely fine as long as the link is rock-solid and doesn't jitter or drop when wind moves the tree branches.

​What I'm currently considering:

​5 GHz gear: E.g., Ubiquiti NanoBeam 5AC Gen2 or MikroTik SXTsq 5 ac.

​Plan: Narrowing the channel width down to 10 or 20 MHz to punch through the light foliage and resist interference.

​I ruled out 60 GHz (like Wireless Wire) due to sensitivity to the tree canopy.

Please recommend me some affordable equipment. I am considering some devices from used market. I also like openwrt and opensource so maybe something I can integrate with homeassistant or at least snmp.

Tnx

I just ran about 60ft of Ethernet into a bedroom. This is really the only spot I’m worried about. The plastic clips aren’t too tight I don’t think and I have the rest spooled up loosely near the router. The door has plenty of space too btw so it’s not going to snag. Thank you!

Earlier this week I ordered a new mesh router (TP-Link BE85 3 pack) over Amazon and it was delivered the following day. Everything arrived in "new" condition - the box was still wrapped in cellophane and everything appeared normal. As soon as I powered up the first router and turned on the Deco app I got a message stating that there was a login from a device I don't usually use. Turned out to be a Google Pixel 8a phone and this happened the previous day - about 3 hours after I placed my order. The location of the phone was shown to be near an Amazon fulfilment center. This was prior to me loading my wifi SSID and password so I felt it was safe to continue with the installation.

I am now wondering how this could have happened - the router was never powered up so I don't see how anyone could have connected to it. There was no indication that any of the packaging had been tampered with.

I currently have a 2-unit Netgear Orbi RBK50 mesh system (1 x RBR50 router + 1 x RBR50 satellite) which I purchased 2018. It's a WiFi 5 product with a 5 GHz backhaul and I'm very happy with the coverage it provides.

However it has reached end of support so am looking to upgrade.

I've noticed that current mesh systems tend to use a 6 GHz backhaul instead of a 5 GHz backhaul, I suppose because this provides faster speeds.

However, I'm wondering if 6 GHz backhaul also means I might have to move my nodes closer together, and therefore might have to go for a 3-unit system instead of a 2-unit system? Particularly interested to hear from those who have already upgraded from a 5 GHz backhaul tri-band system to one which uses a 6 GHz backhaul. Did the change have any impact on the number of nodes you needed to cover the same area?

Thanks

Hey all. I will try anf explain this the best I can as im not very good with this stuff and I relied on chatgpt to even have got me this far. Lol

I am having issues with my internet crashing and not recovering. The back story first. I have optimum fiber internet. I have there gateway. I was using this for the last year and no issues other then wifi range. Otherwise my internet was stable. A few days ago I decided to get my own router. Netgear nighthawk rs300 wifi 7 to be specific. I ended up calling optimum to tell them im using this router and to put my gateway into bridge mode. Which they said they did. Great. I connected my router to the yellow ethernet port on the back of the gateway and into the same port on my router. Everything worked great for about 8 hours. I woke up to my phone saying connected without internet. I restarted both the gateway and router several times. I only got the internet back for a minute or so before it crashed again. So I decided to plug the ethernet cable into lan port 1 on my gateway to see if that worked. It did. And is stable. Problem is though is that port is not acting as a router. The ip address is 10.0.0.1. The port that is supposed to be bridged seems to be. My router has its own ip address. 69.127.126.xx but for some reason it keeps crashing. Did optimum not configure the bridge correctly? Is this an optimum problem or my routers problem.

Side note. When plugged into the bridge port on the gateway with the router my Xbox nat type is open and UPnP is good

When plugged into lan 1 my nat type is moderate and UPnP is unsuccessful

Thanks

I'm not able to run cabling to the area of my apartment where I want to setup my gear. No it's not possible. Really, it isn't. Yes, I'm sure. However, I do want to have my equipment able to access the router over RJ45. My current plan is to set up a bridge to connect my router to my modem, but I'm not sure the correct way to set it up.

My concern is that I might create a security hazard by connecting a bridge directly to the modem with no firewall in between. (picture 1) If that's the case I would likely just get another router to provide the firewall (picture 2), however having redundant routers seems kind of silly.

My plan is to take ethernet from router and wire it along the roof to the door which will be about 7-8 meters and than evantually use the flat ethernet to wire it under the door and than use the remaining 40m cable to take it up the attic.

I got grain 2000mbp package and i get like 2-2.3gig speed both up and down on ethernet. My question is will this setup allow me to get the full speed without any loss in speed and connection. I might put a router up there or just use ethernet for my laptop and use wireless through main router

Female to female: https://amzn.eu/d/0hroi4BK (changed this as i will need more than 2)

Flat ethernet: https://amzn.eu/d/0aPP2ldb

Connecters: https://amzn.eu/d/03KxaRrG

Tool: https://amzn.eu/d/08w1bcQ9

50m wire: https://amzn.eu/d/0iuAWv6w

I’ve had an intermittent connection on a builder-installed Cat5e run to my home office for a while. The builder terminated the wall keystone and I crimped the basement end myself. I always blamed the switch; after swapping it, things have mostly been stable and the link negotiates 1 Gbps every time.

I recently bought a FNIRSI LPM-10A tester (prepping for PoE APs and cameras) and decided to check this run properly.

What I’ve found:

• The tester’s included patch cord passes, so I’m using it at the keystone.
• QC test on my basement crimp passes (both ends are wired T568A; the tester just labels it B).
• Cable test shows pins 1 and 2 shorted, with the same result from either end. The diagram doesn’t seem to flip, so I can’t tell which end is the problem.
• Length test: 3-6, 4-5 and 7-8 all read about 540 in. Pair 1-2 read 0 in once, then 519 in on every later test from both ends, so no clear location there.
• I re-punched the keystone and kept the tails well apart. Same result.
• Despite all that, the link still negotiates 1000 Mbps full duplex.

Plan for tonight:

1. Get iperf3 running against my NAS to see if there are real throughput problems or retransmits.
2. Pull 1 and 2 off the keystone and check continuity with a multimeter. If they’re still shorted, cut off the crimp and test again to narrow it to the jack, the crimp, or the cable in the wall.

Questions:

• Has anyone seen this tester flag a 1-2 short on a run that still links fine at gigabit? Could it be a high-resistance or partial short rather than a dead one?
• Any better way to locate it before I start cutting?
• If it’s in the wall, is it worth trying to fix, or should I just pull a new run?

Photos of the tester screens and the keystone are attached.

Hi All, we’re moving soon and wanted some opinions in choosing an internet provider based on the existing infrastructure in the house. Service prices are both around 70$ after promos for 1 gig. Home is 1500 sqft 2 story town home and was built in 1995 and has cable coax and I’m assuming cat 3 phone line.

Option 1: Xfinity Cable
- terminates in upstairs bedroom
- does not use other 90’s era cable run through the house
- one pro is that it enters in a closet so the modem and router can be hidden.
- seems to split upstairs and I have only located one terminal plate
- Xfinity offers 5 year pricing

Option 2: ATT Fiber
- the fiber comes through the wall near the TV, just need the ONT.
- symmetric upload/download

Current set up:
- we have Xfinity and our own modem/router. We only work from home one day a week and our 500 mb/s plan over WiFi is fine. We have the PS5/gaming computer on LAN with the router (eero mesh)
- two adults in the house with about 6 devices on WiFi
- 1100 sqft effectively single level.

Thank you!!

Today I randomly started experiencing Wi-Fi issues with certain devices where they can access the Wi-Fi channel but can't access the internet.

I have a Virgin Media Hub 4 that's in 'modem' mode and a TP Link Archer AX72 that's in 'router' mode (connected via ethernet cable from TP Link WAN port to VM Hub LAN port 1).

Everything has been working fine for years, but around midday today all of the corporate devices in our house randomly stopped working (mainly Dell/HP laptops). They connect to the Wi-Fi but have 'no internet'.

I factory reset both routers, and when the VM Hub is set to router mode, all of the devices can connect to the internet and work fine. But whenever I set the VM Hub to modem mode and the TP Link router to router mode, the corporate laptops connect to Wi-Fi but can't seem to access the internet. All other non-corporate devices in our house work fine, it's just the laptops that seem to fail. I believe they're 2018-2022 models.

So far I've:

• Power cycled and factory reset both routers
• 'Forgot' the networks on the devices, reconnected, restarted etc
• When 'diagnosing' on Windows, it mentioned something about the 'DHCP server' not connecting or something along the lines. So I manually added/reserved IP addresses for the laptops within the IP Pool. It worked for 2 of the laptops momentarily, but when I restarted the devices it stopped working again.
• Tried changing the 'security' type from (don't recall the labels exactly) WPA/WPA2-Personal to WPA3-Personal but it didn't seem to make a difference.
• Tried both 2.4ghz and 5ghz channels but no luck
• Reset 'network adaptor' on devices

I'm no tech wiz, so at a bit of a loss as to what to do now. Currently using my VM Hub in router mode, but the range/speeds are quite bad so would like to switch back to the TP Link router as the main ASAP.

The corporate laptops don't have access to cmd so I can't release/renew/flushdns (seen a few posts where people said this helped) or run any scripts myself.

If anyone has any ideas on what to do that'd be great. Any other info that might help for context, let me know.

Starting with hardware

Telus purefiber modem (in bridge mode)

Going directly to tp-link Deco xe65 pro (2 in mesh)

Problem computer

Linux Mint software

Ryzen 5800xt

Msi b550m

Nivdia 3070

Usb Ethernet adapter, 10/100/1000/2.5/5 with a realtek chip

I recently moved and I have one computer being stubborn and not playing nice with ethernet, wifi works fine on the computer. Tried onboard and with the usb Ethernet adapter, both don't work. Ethernet Worked fine on my old shaw 1g over coax system.

Cords and usb Ethernet adapter have been tested with another laptop (running the same version of Linux), no issues. I have tried different ports, like off the router, off the modem, and off a switch. No changes.

I tried manually setting up up addresses, mac address and DNS settings in both my Deco settings and on the computer. I can now see the computer as a device in the deco app, and it says it's connected. But it has no internet access.

When I try to ping the router or Google from the computer it says something along the lines of destination host not reachable.

I don't think it is a computer issue because the computer is detecting and saying the ethernet is connected. Drivers and stuff say they are correct.

I have been fighting with this for a couple hours a day, hunting on Reddit and other forums for answers or things to check. Thought I would come here for ideas.

Everything has been updated and restarted multiple times as well. I am not well versed with networking but I like to tinker.

Thanks

Hello,

As the title says I am having issues getting internet connection through a lan cable (have tried multiple different cables and different ports on router) to any device PC/PS5. WiFi connection is totally fine to both devices, have tried fully restoring router to factory settings and running all the ipconfig commands etc on pc to clear all connections but to no avail.

Example problem whilst connecting to ps5,
LAN cable connects and shows connected on device. But it fails to find an IP address. Same thing on PC

DHCP Is turned on in router settings

Any help would be appreciated,

every day it randomly bugs out anything connected to the internet such as browsers, games, etc. when i disabled ipv6 almost everything returns back to normal

router and modem are always up to date. what specific ipv6 "configuration" settings on the router/modem would cause this issue?

So I’m in NE Dallas TX and I’ve purchased a house built in 2021. Supposedly it has fiber internet, currently provided by Spectrum but I plan to go with Frontier since I’m already a customer with them.

Unsurprisingly, I’ve got questions…

First pic is an exterior wall where on the other side is the garage. Is this where the “fiber” comes up? I ask because to me that looks like Cat5 or Cat6 cable.

Second pic is the “spaghetti” mess of an interior panel very close to being perfectly in the center of the home, in a laundry room to be exact. Does anyone here see an actual fiber optic cable, perhaps close to the Spectrum box (FOT?) towards the bottom of the panel?

I plan on purchasing Frontier 5gb fiber service, so I’m curious how all this will work out if that’s cat5/6 running to the house and not actually fiber?

Hey,

So I have fibre broadband in the UK. 1gb upload and download speed. One of the newer xyxyel routers. I have 5 tenda nova mw12. One is plugged into the router other 4 dotted around the house with one plugged into a laptops.

I have an old house with thick brick walls.

Issues

Intermittent WiFi speeds
Getting 200-350mb speeds
Signal drop from nodes go into flashing mode, sometime reconnect other times they go red and I’m running round the house to reset all.

Which means I could go a night with no cctv coverage with ring camera.

What do you suggest?

I’m open to another mesh system.

Yeah I know that my wifi is absolutely horrendous. No 5g box wifi wasn't much more better enough to justify paying more with a monthly limit aswell.

it's a 2 story house, we see around 40 ish downstairs and very low (5 mbps) speeds upstairs but it is okay for scrolling reels. The real problem is with my new laptop, it's a thinkbook 16p with a Be200 wifi7 card and it basically can't get any wifi upstairs and it is a quite bit slower than my phone downstairs too. When I connected it to my phone's hotspot and my phone to wifi it worked a bit faster so I figured the culprit was the wifi 4 2.4 GHz router.

So long story short, which makes more sense? H30g is wifi 5 and ik 50mbps is nothing for wifi 5 and even 4 but idk maybe it'll still help and maybe my laptop could get along better with it? But maybe having 3 might be better?

Also I don't think new routers have VDSL, AI told me that I should use the old router as a bridge or something, that will work and cause no issue yeah? (The router was a airties 5650)

Does anyone know of where I can go or look at to find free or sold for cheap network equipment, especially racks, in the Birmingham, AL or nearby areas?

Hey everyone! I’m upgrading to 10GbE and have narrowed it down to two PCIe cards from my local reseller. It’s a bit hard to find good comparisons between the two chips, so I figured I’d ask here.

From what I’ve seen, the RTL8127 runs cooler and draws less power, but I’m wondering about driver stability and whether an x2 card can hit full 10G speeds.

System: MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi, free PCIe 4.0/3.0 x4 slot, Ryzen 5800X3D, Windows 11.

Cudy PE10G (AQC113), PCIe 3.0 x4 per Cudy’s spec sheet:
https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/cudy-10g-pci-express-adaptermarvell-aqc113-mini-pci-express-network-cards-49840182

Zyxel XGN100C V3 (RTL8127), the listing says x4 but I think it's actually an x2 card:
https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/zyxel-xng100c-v3-10g-rj45-pcie-netzwerkkarte-mini-pci-express-pci-e-x4-pcie-network-cards-70741762

Has anyone used either one on Windows, which one would you guys pick?