Home wifi network
Discussion
After a little help. Current set up is a Virgin Home Hub 3.0. We have one of the virgin wifi extenders too in a bedroom.
Some problems. The Home hub constantly reports that it's overheating even if it's been switched off for hours. Virgin have been hopeless is sorting this and to be honest I'm sick to death of the amount of time that's being consumed trying to get them to send out a new one.
Wifi around the house is patchy at the best of times but I suspect the router fault is making things worse at present. Our house is an extended 1930's semi and a lot of the internal walls are brick. It just seems to struggle with wifi generally.
In the interests of taking control of the situation, I'm flirting with the idea of setting the Virgin Hub up as a modem and feeding up to four wifi routers via power line adaptors.
I'd prefer run some network cable around the house but I haven't come up with a solution for this without an awful lot of mess.
So, my questions,
1. Is my solution sensible?
2. What are good power line adaptors to go for and how do they work if I need say 3 or 4 of them? Can one send signal to others?
3. A recommendation for appropriate wifi routers? Budget might be a concern as I'll need a few.
Some problems. The Home hub constantly reports that it's overheating even if it's been switched off for hours. Virgin have been hopeless is sorting this and to be honest I'm sick to death of the amount of time that's being consumed trying to get them to send out a new one.
Wifi around the house is patchy at the best of times but I suspect the router fault is making things worse at present. Our house is an extended 1930's semi and a lot of the internal walls are brick. It just seems to struggle with wifi generally.
In the interests of taking control of the situation, I'm flirting with the idea of setting the Virgin Hub up as a modem and feeding up to four wifi routers via power line adaptors.
I'd prefer run some network cable around the house but I haven't come up with a solution for this without an awful lot of mess.
So, my questions,
1. Is my solution sensible?
2. What are good power line adaptors to go for and how do they work if I need say 3 or 4 of them? Can one send signal to others?
3. A recommendation for appropriate wifi routers? Budget might be a concern as I'll need a few.
Robotron-2084 said:
I’m desperately trying not sound like a cock, but my house is 3 stories and 7 bedrooms plus a large garden and my Orbi network of 4 units covers every single nook and cranny.
I cant remember the last time I had to reboot them or search for a signal.
Sounds promising. Did you move to that having had issues before? It's been something that's plagues us since we moved in and I've probably tried a few too many half arsed efforts. If a good mesh system will work I'm firmly on board I cant remember the last time I had to reboot them or search for a signal.
Hi
We had the same problem , with 2 teenagers both with games consoles and smart tvs and phones and pcs in the pits (bedrooms) !
5 mobiles in the house and various other gadgets that use the internet , I ditched the crappy super hub put it into modem mode and bought a ASUS rt66 router that sorted it completely, I run a tp link power line’s adapters from all 3 bedrooms and have 1 plugged into wall socket next to router that is connected via Ethernet lead to it which sorts the bedrooms out
2 sky box’s and a Android IPTV box and 2 smart TVs downstairs use the ASUS WiFi signal ,
The sim racing pc that is dads den ( summer house ) at the bottom of garden 30metres away from house has a ASUS ac1900 pcie WiFi card which gets the full 100mb download speed!
Before I fitted all this the kids couldn’t play on the Xboxes at the same time or watch Netflix without getting buffering it’s now rock sold and can even stream 4K without problems
Definitely go for a router upgrade , and try the tp power line adapters , you won’t be disappointed
I have the 100mb virgin cable fibre
Good luck
We had the same problem , with 2 teenagers both with games consoles and smart tvs and phones and pcs in the pits (bedrooms) !
5 mobiles in the house and various other gadgets that use the internet , I ditched the crappy super hub put it into modem mode and bought a ASUS rt66 router that sorted it completely, I run a tp link power line’s adapters from all 3 bedrooms and have 1 plugged into wall socket next to router that is connected via Ethernet lead to it which sorts the bedrooms out
2 sky box’s and a Android IPTV box and 2 smart TVs downstairs use the ASUS WiFi signal ,
The sim racing pc that is dads den ( summer house ) at the bottom of garden 30metres away from house has a ASUS ac1900 pcie WiFi card which gets the full 100mb download speed!
Before I fitted all this the kids couldn’t play on the Xboxes at the same time or watch Netflix without getting buffering it’s now rock sold and can even stream 4K without problems
Definitely go for a router upgrade , and try the tp power line adapters , you won’t be disappointed
I have the 100mb virgin cable fibre
Good luck
I had the same problem as the OP, I got some of these when they were on offer for £99.
Absolutely brilliant, no more complaints about poor Wi Fi from my kids or wife.
https://shop.bt.com/products/bt-whole-home-wi-fi-0...
Absolutely brilliant, no more complaints about poor Wi Fi from my kids or wife.
https://shop.bt.com/products/bt-whole-home-wi-fi-0...
Gad-Westy said:
Sounds promising. Did you move to that having had issues before? It's been something that's plagues us since we moved in and I've probably tried a few too many half arsed efforts. If a good mesh system will work I'm firmly on board
Yeah I tried a few things, cheap Netgear range extenders and powerline adaptors.I put the BT discs into my parents house about 12 months ago, I’ve not had to go back at all to reboot them, they look quite smart too.
I think Mesh WiFi has moved the game on a bit, wireless doesn’t appear to be quite as flakey as it used to be, in my limited experience.
If you decide to go powerline I swear by the Devolo range, I’ve got one in my lounge plugged into my router and the other one in my garage where my cctv dvr is located. Even though my garage and my lounge are on separate circuits, don’t ask me how that works, but I get a rock solid connection between them and can stream 4K footage remotely from my cctv to my phone.
Edited by Robotron-2084 on Sunday 26th April 19:30
Gad-Westy said:
A bit of poking around suggests I could maybe get some proper network cables into some key areas of the house.
I I did that, what sort of routers and set up is required to get it all working seamlessly together as one network?
If you can then do this, wired backhaul is better than wireless.I I did that, what sort of routers and set up is required to get it all working seamlessly together as one network?
What’s the budget?
BT Discs there are 2 types
Ones that work only with the BT Smarthub 2 (or put another way ones that are designed primarily to work with the BT Smarthub 2)
and those that work with any router
Virgin Media thing overheating - its faulty keeping it and putting it into modem mode it will still be faulty.I won't patronise you by asking where its kept and airflow etc
You can get through to Virgin best time I found was around 3pm. I had a faulty SH3 I wasnt messing about so I simply unplugged it rang it through as faulty the automated thing said (I'm paraphrasing) ..... we will do tests...............we have done our tests we cannot see your router ..... please make sure its plugged in .... if you have already done this .........etc etc.
I then hung up dialled back 15 mins later started again and got .... we can see you recently rang with a problem.if you are still experiencing that problem please hang on................... lines are busy wait times blah blah blah .......... was speaking to someone 30 minutes later engineer booked next day unit swapped within 10 minutes
Ones that work only with the BT Smarthub 2 (or put another way ones that are designed primarily to work with the BT Smarthub 2)
and those that work with any router
Virgin Media thing overheating - its faulty keeping it and putting it into modem mode it will still be faulty.I won't patronise you by asking where its kept and airflow etc
You can get through to Virgin best time I found was around 3pm. I had a faulty SH3 I wasnt messing about so I simply unplugged it rang it through as faulty the automated thing said (I'm paraphrasing) ..... we will do tests...............we have done our tests we cannot see your router ..... please make sure its plugged in .... if you have already done this .........etc etc.
I then hung up dialled back 15 mins later started again and got .... we can see you recently rang with a problem.if you are still experiencing that problem please hang on................... lines are busy wait times blah blah blah .......... was speaking to someone 30 minutes later engineer booked next day unit swapped within 10 minutes
Agree with the mesh solution. I went with Google Nest as it played nicely with all my Google home stuff. The wifi on my Virgin hub was awful and this fixed it with only around 10 minutes effort and 1 extra node on top of the router.
I've found no need for any wires other than from the modem to the router. Backhaul or otherwise. Streaming TV, gaming, multiple phones and around 15 or so smart home devices have never worked at anything below full speed.
Your hub does need replacing though. Get it sorted, put it in modem mode and then attach your mesh setup of choice.
I've found no need for any wires other than from the modem to the router. Backhaul or otherwise. Streaming TV, gaming, multiple phones and around 15 or so smart home devices have never worked at anything below full speed.
Your hub does need replacing though. Get it sorted, put it in modem mode and then attach your mesh setup of choice.
Edited by Gren on Monday 27th April 09:11
Obvious and easiest solution is the network extenders as mentioned
I've got a man cave 4 walls and around 100 feet from the main router so I've ran a hardwire out to there, the 3rd floor in the house struggles a bit with signal and I'm debating the wired or wireless solution, so will keep an eye on what goes on here!
I've got a man cave 4 walls and around 100 feet from the main router so I've ran a hardwire out to there, the 3rd floor in the house struggles a bit with signal and I'm debating the wired or wireless solution, so will keep an eye on what goes on here!
I didn't go the mesh route simply because I wired the house up in cat 6 a bit ago and popped in some routers in access point mode to cover it.
The routers were very reasonable the cabling was very reasonable.
But thats great if you were redecorating and as in our case having other electrical work done
From what I've seen of other people that have mash stuff they seem happy and it works easily enough
The routers were very reasonable the cabling was very reasonable.
But thats great if you were redecorating and as in our case having other electrical work done
From what I've seen of other people that have mash stuff they seem happy and it works easily enough
Cheers all.
I've dug around more today and I can definitely get cat 6 cable to key 'zones' of the house. Probably 4 zones in total. No difficulty at all.
So knowing that I could do that would I be better off wiring to 4x wifi routers, probably via a switch as I'd run some devices hard wired as well.
Or would I still be better going for a mesh system anyway? And if so, I presume I'd still need to get a 'main' wifi router to create the wireless network in the first place (instead of our dodgy virgin home hub) and then just set the home hub up a modem and give it an easy life!
I've dug around more today and I can definitely get cat 6 cable to key 'zones' of the house. Probably 4 zones in total. No difficulty at all.
So knowing that I could do that would I be better off wiring to 4x wifi routers, probably via a switch as I'd run some devices hard wired as well.
Or would I still be better going for a mesh system anyway? And if so, I presume I'd still need to get a 'main' wifi router to create the wireless network in the first place (instead of our dodgy virgin home hub) and then just set the home hub up a modem and give it an easy life!
TPSA7514 said:
Virgin Media thing overheating - its faulty keeping it and putting it into modem mode it will still be faulty.I won't patronise you by asking where its kept and airflow etc
You can get through to Virgin best time I found was around 3pm. I had a faulty SH3 I wasnt messing about so I simply unplugged it rang it through as faulty the automated thing said (I'm paraphrasing) ..... we will do tests...............we have done our tests we cannot see your router ..... please make sure its plugged in .... if you have already done this .........etc etc.
I then hung up dialled back 15 mins later started again and got .... we can see you recently rang with a problem.if you are still experiencing that problem please hang on................... lines are busy wait times blah blah blah .......... was speaking to someone 30 minutes later engineer booked next day unit swapped within 10 minutes
I'll maybe try them again. It's tricky at the moment as wife and I are both trying to run businesses from home so no great opportunity to spend ages on the phone and run through their tests, assuming I get through. So at the moment, I can live with it as we can hard wire work stuff and live with the patchy wifi on non-key devices. I did try to get some support via their forums but the two staff who seemed keen to help have dissappeared off the face of the planet at the last minute so no luck there.You can get through to Virgin best time I found was around 3pm. I had a faulty SH3 I wasnt messing about so I simply unplugged it rang it through as faulty the automated thing said (I'm paraphrasing) ..... we will do tests...............we have done our tests we cannot see your router ..... please make sure its plugged in .... if you have already done this .........etc etc.
I then hung up dialled back 15 mins later started again and got .... we can see you recently rang with a problem.if you are still experiencing that problem please hang on................... lines are busy wait times blah blah blah .......... was speaking to someone 30 minutes later engineer booked next day unit swapped within 10 minutes
But actually, even when it was working properly, wifi was still a problem anyway, just better than it is now. So I know even with a new shiny router, I'll still have issues. I'll get VM to replace it at some point but inclined to wait until their support is back to a normal level.
Gad-Westy said:
Cheers all.
I've dug around more today and I can definitely get cat 6 cable to key 'zones' of the house. Probably 4 zones in total. No difficulty at all.
So knowing that I could do that would I be better off wiring to 4x wifi routers, probably via a switch as I'd run some devices hard wired as well.
Or would I still be better going for a mesh system anyway? And if so, I presume I'd still need to get a 'main' wifi router to create the wireless network in the first place (instead of our dodgy virgin home hub) and then just set the home hub up a modem and give it an easy life!
I'm definitely about 20 years out of date from a professional perspective, but I've had issues with wireless connectivity over the years and having a hard wired location (especially to my WFH area) has helped for sureI've dug around more today and I can definitely get cat 6 cable to key 'zones' of the house. Probably 4 zones in total. No difficulty at all.
So knowing that I could do that would I be better off wiring to 4x wifi routers, probably via a switch as I'd run some devices hard wired as well.
Or would I still be better going for a mesh system anyway? And if so, I presume I'd still need to get a 'main' wifi router to create the wireless network in the first place (instead of our dodgy virgin home hub) and then just set the home hub up a modem and give it an easy life!
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