Virgin Media Hub 3 - Poor WiFi.. Had it 3 days

[HannsG]

Hi guys,

Had 350Mb line installed and I am shocked at how crap the router is compared to the old BT Infinity Hub.

Been reading up on what to do. I can turn the Virgin Hub into a Modem and install another router alongside with a much better coverage or one of those mesh systems.

I am loath to install another connection spot on a separate router as I'm to lazy and from experience it can become problematic.

Can anyone recommend a solution? Either another router or a Mesh system? The Tenda MW series seem decent and reasonably priced

Thanks

[HantsRat]

Ditch the hub and get yourself a Unifi USG with a AP (or 2)

[robbieduncan]

I have my VM Hub in modem mode with a UniFi USG Pro4 acting as the router and Unifi UAC-IW access points in 7 rooms. WiFi is perfect and rock solid! However this is almost certainly an overkill solution

[Gren]

Suffered with my Virgin hub for ages. The last straw was when I bought a nice new 4k oled smart TV a few weeks back and it couldn't reliably pick up the wifi. Virgin tivo box underneath seemed to have no problems but anyway...

Ended up going with the Google Nest mesh setup (router and 1 point) seeing as I have Google home stuff all over the place and it's been brilliant. Full 200 meg all through the house whereas it used to drop regularly at the points furthest from the hub. 100 year old 4 bed house with solid walls throughout and we've just got one router/point on each floor. Had to buy a switch for the wired stuff in the study as the router is a bit stingy with ethernet ports but not really a big issue.

Took around 5 minutes to setup and uses the same app as all the other Google home kits.

[GCH]

When my virgin 'super'hub arrived, it took around an hour for me to realise the wifi was atrocious and to place an order for an apple airport extreme, and stick the virgin thing in modem mode.
No issues thereafter.
You can pick them up cheaply and they work well.

[megaphone]

What's wrong with the WiFi? Slow? Poor coverage? Won't connect?

I had no issues with a SH3, got good speed and good coverage. It is important you separate the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks if they're not already. Use 5Ghz for better speed, 2.4ghz does tend to have better coverage, you need to make sure it is on a clear channel.

[HRL]

Unfortunately the SH3 is flaky as hell if you have any more than 5-6 devices connected to it. Or least mine was.

I put up with it for far too long and only recently put it into modem mode and installed a Netgear R8000P. Capable for up to 55 devices and better signal everywhere in the house.

[techguyone]

megaphone said:

What's wrong with the WiFi? Slow? Poor coverage? Won't connect?

I had no issues with a SH3, got good speed and good coverage. It is important you separate the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks if they're not already. Use 5Ghz for better speed, 2.4ghz does tend to have better coverage, you need to make sure it is on a clear channel.

Poor coverage, I just got 3 tp-link M5 deco's mesh things - no more problem.

Chose that over a single router as that would still be from only one point, the 3 meshes mean I have coverage everywhere - even in the front drive & rear garden.

[CharlieH89]

What is the cheapest way of me making the hub work better?

[Mr E]

CharlieH89 said:

What is the cheapest way of me making the hub work better?

Modem mode and a proper router.

Or, leave it as a router and connect a WiFi mesh solution. Depends how big the space is.

Edited by Mr E on Tuesday 24th December 15:04

[ecsrobin]

Mr E said:

CharlieH89 said:

What is the cheapest way of me making the hub work better?

Modem mode and a proper router.

Or, leave it as a router and connect a WiFi mesh solution. Depends how big the space is.

Edited by Mr E on Tuesday 24th December 15:04

I went with Tenda MW6 as recommended on here and put it in modem only mode which sadly means only 1 Ethernet port works so have an 8 port switch corrected to the 1 working port and then from there into my Mesh setup and then all other ports used for hard wired devices.

[Mr E]

ecsrobin said:

I went with Tenda MW6 as recommended on here and put it in modem only mode which sadly means only 1 Ethernet port works so have an 8 port switch corrected to the 1 working port and then from there into my Mesh setup and then all other ports used for hard wired devices.

Switch or router?
What’s providing your NAT and DHCP service?

[HannsG]

Excellent stuff guys. I really appreciate it as always. I will need at least 7 ethernet open ports. Have a Tenda network switch so it helps matters also

I have been looking at this also. Went over to the VM user forums and one of the guys had one of these:

Asus RT-AC1200G+ Router

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-90IG0241-BM3000-Asus...

Looks decent enough. My house is old brick so wondering whether it's got enough punching power through the walls.

I will make sure to go through all the comments once I get back back from the Xmas eve family meal out. Provided I aint too st faced (Drunk!)

[ecsrobin]

Mr E said:

ecsrobin said:

I went with Tenda MW6 as recommended on here and put it in modem only mode which sadly means only 1 Ethernet port works so have an 8 port switch corrected to the 1 working port and then from there into my Mesh setup and then all other ports used for hard wired devices.

Switch or router?
What’s providing your NAT and DHCP service?

I have no device providing NAT or DHCP so assume the modem only mode still provides this from the VM3?

Definitely just a switch.

[techguyone]

You don't have to go modem mode. I just plugged in my first mesh into a lan port on the Superhub, then a switch connected to the ethernet port on the mesh and all other wired devices into the switch. This meant that all devices wired or not, were all on the same network (mesh).

As each mesh device also had two ethernet ports I could attached wired only devices to those in other rooms too, and they also would be on the same network.

I also disabled all wifi from the Superhub as it wasn't needed and it gets annoying if a device randomly tries to connect to the poorer wifi signal.

If for some reason I need to connect something to the superhub itself and not go through the mesh, I still have 3 spare lan ports on the Superhub.

Edited by techguyone on Tuesday 24th December 17:44

[Mr E]

ecsrobin said:

I have no device providing NAT or DHCP so assume the modem only mode still provides this from the VM3?

Definitely just a switch.

I don’t think it does. Im concerned you’re running with no firewall.

[Mr E]

If you’re running WLAN AP’s only, leave the superhub in router mode but disable WiFi. If you’re running it to a 3rd party L3 router, modem mode is what you want.

[Richyvrlimited]

ecsrobin said:

I have no device providing NAT or DHCP so assume the modem only mode still provides this from the VM3?

Definitely just a switch.

Unless you've statically set the one outside IP address to your one and only internet device - highly unlikely. something somewhere on your network is performing NAT (and most likely DHCP too), if it weren't you'd have zero internet access.

Modem only mode is literally that, a modem, it does nothing else. I have mine configured this way but the modem goes directly into an ASA firewall which performs the NAT, DHCP and firewall (duh) duties.

[ecsrobin]

Richyvrlimited said:

ecsrobin said:

I have no device providing NAT or DHCP so assume the modem only mode still provides this from the VM3?

Definitely just a switch.

Unless you've statically set the one outside IP address to your one and only internet device - highly unlikely. something somewhere on your network is performing NAT (and most likely DHCP too), if it weren't you'd have zero internet access.

Modem only mode is literally that, a modem, it does nothing else. I have mine configured this way but the modem goes directly into an ASA firewall which performs the NAT, DHCP and firewall (duh) duties.

So I have a reasonable knowledge of IT but having read the Tenda thread on here I did as mentioned and switched to modem mode and attached the Tenda mesh as others had described.

So what am I missing that I should have.

[98elise]

The Superhub 3 is dire. We were forced to "upgrade" and the WiFi was shocking. The technical support from Virgin was also dire, they were utterly clueless.

They would not accept that it was a problem with the router. They refused to change the router unless I signed up for a year contract, and even then would not guarantee it would be fix the problem.

I added my own WiFi router and everything was sorted.

We're moving to Sky in the new year as I refuse to pay top money for a st service.