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Thermopyle
Jul 1, 2003

...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell

Antillie posted:

Ideally your 2.4ghz and 5ghz radios will be set with the same SSID and encryption settings your wifi client devices can roam between them as needed based on which band happens to be performing the best at any given moment.

That is if your client is good at giving up on a connection. I swear half of the devices I've ever had will hold onto a goddamn connection forever as long as it can get a few kilobytes out of it.

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Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

Yeah some client devices are stupid.

Oddhair
Mar 21, 2004

I recently got a Unifi Edge Router X and a UAP-AC-Lite to replace an old Dlink wireless router that started falling over multiple times a day once my internet went past ~70 Mb. It's by far my favorite home router ever.

I'm wondering what else I can do with this combo? (And I'm terribly sorry for how open ended that is.)

I mean, it's screaming fast on wired at 176Mb/s and wireless is a solid 100Mb on my roomie's iPhone 6 phablet-sized model as well as on a USB3 AC adapter I got for my laptop. I have never once needed to let anyone on my guest SSID so I skipped setting one up. WiFi is on its own /24 subnet (and I don't yet know how I could get it bridged to the router either.) Even though we have several iPhones and other Apple devices, all of them at both ends of Airplay are on WiFi so Airplay is also working just great. PS4 works great, the one PC gaming roomie has no complaints, I just feel like I should at least have something more than the two NAT rules and the single SSID.

I have a small home lab that just stays off most of the time, but given that I have a home connection and a single dynamic IP I'd likely be setting that up with a VPN. I honestly can't even think of something else to do except the VPN, so I can turn the WiFi lights on and off while outside the house and mess with the roomies.

I understand that the answer to this is essentially "what do you want to do?" but I got nothing. If there's a way to make the WiFi closer to the internet speed that would be great, I think it's just going to be faster with MIMO or wider channels, haven't even had a chance to look into it.

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

The Lite supports 2x2 MIMO. So if your wifi client things only have 1x1 wifi adapters in them then upgrading those to 2x2 MIMO adapters will yield a significant performance improvement. Generally, this only an option for laptop and desktop PCs.

If you don't want the wifi on its own subnet then when you setup the ERX use the WAN+2LAN2 wizard and check the box for "Only use one LAN". But if you are happy with how everything is working at the moment there is no real reason to change things.

I suppose you could setup a guest wifi network. There are a couple of different ways you can do it (the AP built in method which is easier to setup vs the separate VLAN method which is more customizable/extensible) but it sounds like you don't really need a guest wifi network.

Same for VPN access. Its nice if you need it but for most people its probably not worth the hassle.

Dogen
May 5, 2002

Bury my body down by the highwayside, so that my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride

Antillie posted:

Yeah some client devices are stupid.

I can't have my networks on the same SSID because it makes my Nest thermostat not connect, if you can believe that. I didn't even think it had a 5ghz radio in it so I'm not sure how that even happens.

Thermopyle
Jul 1, 2003

...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell

What's a good and easy way of testing WiFi throughput from client devices? Particularly Android devices, but something more cross-platform is cool too.

I've got an Ubiquiti ERL router and both Windows and Linux hosts on the network.

Sentient Data
Aug 31, 2011

My molecule scrambler ray will disintegrate your armor with one blow!
http://speedtest.frontier.com/ actually seems decent if it can run flash, though I'm not sure how well it handles >100m speeds

If you're talking just the wifi on lan, what about timing a large file transfer between a wifi client and a server on ethernet?

Star War Sex Parrot
Oct 2, 2003

Thermopyle posted:

What's a good and easy way of testing WiFi throughput from client devices? Particularly Android devices, but something more cross-platform is cool too.

I've got an Ubiquiti ERL router and both Windows and Linux hosts on the network.
iperf is pretty much the standard.

https://iperf.fr

Thermopyle
Jul 1, 2003

...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell

Sentient Data posted:

http://speedtest.frontier.com/ actually seems decent if it can run flash, though I'm not sure how well it handles >100m speeds

If you're talking just the wifi on lan, what about timing a large file transfer between a wifi client and a server on ethernet?

Yeah, I'm just wanting to know the quality/capability of the WiFi connection so it needs to be LAN-LAN.


Star War Sex Parrot posted:

iperf is pretty much the standard.

https://iperf.fr

This'll do. Thanks!

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry
Yeah, browser based speedtests are all pretty much junk, though Ookla's speedtest.net and Netflix's fast.com are going to be the best throughput tests. As long as it's browser based, you'll never outperform what the browser allows.

iperf3 will do wire-rate tests with parallel streams, customizable packet sizes, and isn't limited by the hard drive read/write speed of your PC since it pulls random data.

The best example I can give is that I have a server hooked up to a 10gig internet backbone link, and the fastest Ookla's speedtest will report is ~1.1gb/sec whereas I can push 8+gb/sec using iperf.

Rukus
Mar 13, 2007

Hmph.

CrazyLittle posted:

Reminder that SFP+ ports are incompatible with 10gig BASE-T copper ports since 10gig on copper requires more power than the SFP+ spec allows. So if you get the Ubiquiti switch you're limited to only 4 copper 10gig devices. Then again, 10G BASE-T is horrible anyways because the max distance over CAT6a is something stupid like 120ft.


Ah, that's good to know, thanks.

e: I guess HP makes one, but like you said, the power requirements cap it at 30 meters distance: https://www.hpe.com/h20195/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=c04742287&doctype=quickspecs&doclang=EN_US&searchquery=&cc=ie&lc=en

smax
Nov 9, 2009

I'm way more frustrated than I probably should be right now. This isn't really a question, just pure venting about home networking.

My parents are building a house right now and it's getting close to being done. I had mapped out what drops I wanted where, specified CAT6 cabling to hopefully future-proof things a little and make sure they're getting good wiring that they'll be stuck with forever. I specifically asked for 2 drops to each bedroom, plus 4 at each entertainment center so they could avoid using switches all over the place if they have multiple devices, and have the option of splitting off one drop per room for IPTV use (like ATT Uverse) or for a second subnet for whatever reason. I had a 24-port switch for the main network, plus an 8-port switch for the second subnet/IPTV boxes, plus a keystone patch panel with plenty of CAT6 jacks for them.

I get a call from the low voltage/home theater guy today. First thing out of his mouth is "well I see you have CAT6 jacks but the wiring's all CAT5," followed by "these switches are way overkill for what's installed here." I told him to do what he has to to terminate the drops right and to just use the 24-port switch for everything. It sounds like they did one drop per location with a TV hookup (one per bedroom plus one at each living room) and that's it. No wonder they had costed out a single 8-port switch for the place.

Right now I have no clue what to expect when I walk into that house. I had added a few Ethernet drops for where I was going to put things like printers, and had moved the wireless access points since they were in bad locations on the original plans. My mom insists she gave the guys my instructions, but it doesn't look like they read them at all.

Way too late to do anything about it of course since the place is just about done, but I had already purchased equipment, mapped everything out, and configured the router in a particular way to match my layout. Yes it was a bit overkill, but what the gently caress people. I will make do with what we have, but I feel like I wasted a ton of effort.

caberham
Mar 18, 2009

by Smythe
Grimey Drawer
And you paid for it too. gently caress shoddy construction. Im in the midst of moving to a new apartment and ordered some custom furniture and and contracted people to paint the walls.

Before anything started I even gave them a 100 dollar tip to each of them to put some extra care in the job.

Nope, still bad work. They can all breathe asbestos and get cancer. You really need to make inspections everyday and hound them.

smax
Nov 9, 2009

caberham posted:

And you paid for it too. gently caress shoddy construction. Im in the midst of moving to a new apartment and ordered some custom furniture and and contracted people to paint the walls.

Before anything started I even gave them a 100 dollar tip to each of them to put some extra care in the job.

Nope, still bad work. They can all breathe asbestos and get cancer. You really need to make inspections everyday and hound them.

The house is a 4 hour drive from me, so I couldn't ever make it. I had been asking my parents what the network wiring looked like whenever they went down there, but they said it was always covered up when they were there. This is why I've been hounding you to look, mom.

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry
For future reference, just get 1" flex conduit with a tow-rope pulled for the low voltage stuff. That way they can't gently caress it up without being really obvious, and you can pull in the cat6+whatever you want, plus you can pull in fiber later if you need it.

RME
Feb 20, 2012

Do range extenders cut throughput for everything on the wifi network, or just things that have to receive the connection from a range extender?

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

RME posted:

Do range extenders cut throughput for everything on the wifi network, or just things that have to receive the connection from a range extender?

Typically only things connected downstream from the range extender.

RME
Feb 20, 2012

CrazyLittle posted:

Typically only things connected downstream from the range extender.

Okay,
My parents have a large house, and the singular archer c9 mostly covers it, except for one upstairs room, my younger brother's. We have our PS4 up there, and he wants to use his iPad in bed but the wireless is very shakey and keeps dropping out. Apparently their circuits are pretty noisey and the powerline adapter isn't working for them anymore. I'm thinkng about setting up a wireless extender for the upstairs, wherever things are struggling to connect to the downstairs router, and just accepting the throughput loss as long as its only for a few devices. Am I misguided in this plan?

notwithoutmyanus
Mar 17, 2009
^^^ as a base reminder, powerline adapters have range limitations. Electric signals can go far! Maybe try moving it a few feet closer or another outlet first and go main connection -> powerline -> extender or AP. In this capacity plugging the extender into the powerline connection when it has a good signal would be able to have the extender run as another AP instead of an extender, thus meaning: better throughput.

So yes, get an extender, but also fix your powerline problem as well.

RME
Feb 20, 2012

Well i got my parents setup with a range extender and reportedly its been working well so far. Messing around with the powerline adapter will just have to wait until the next time i visit them

Deeters
Aug 21, 2007


I lost my cable internet connection once the tropical storm blew through my area yesterday. Cox told me there's no outages in the area and none of my neighbors are having problems. I tried a factory reboot on my modem (SBG6580) and moving it to different jacks in my apartment. Neither helped. I can't see any damage to the outdoor cable, but is there anything else I can check before a tech comes out tomorrow?

Edit: Tech came out and found one of the outdoor splitters was full of water. Neat.

Deeters fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Sep 5, 2016

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Hi network people.

I have what I think is a pretty simple question, but I'll give the details for why I'm asking, below.

I have Comcast cable internet. The cable is installed into my back room which I use as an office. I bought a Arris Surfboard SB6183 cable modem. It has one ethernet out jack.

I have a separate wireless router. It's a Netgear AC1750. It has really nice wifi features, and four ethernet ports on the back.

What I want to do is place my wireless router in the middle of the house. But, I want wired Ethernet jacks in my office, where all the computers are. Obviously I could run the ethernet line from the cable modem, under the house, to the wifi router placed in the middle of the house... but then I'd need to run at least one ethernet line back to the office, in order to attach a switch and connect up our computers.

Is it possible to instead put a switch in between the cable modem, and the router? So, I could have the cable go into the modem, one ethernet line come out and go into a switch, then one ethernet line come out of the switch and go to the wifi router. And then... somehow, magically, the wifi router would be able to assign IP addresses to devices attached to the switch. Would that work?

Like this:



Would this work?

If it wouldn't work, what is a better way to do this? I realize I could buy a wifi access point and just wire that into the middle of the house, but that would be more expensive than a switch.

Graniteman
Nov 16, 2002

Leperflesh posted:

Hi network people.

You just need a router in place of the switch.

In your drawing, replace the switch with something like an edgerouter lite (router with no wifi). Then configure your current wifi router to just be an access point with no routing.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Aww. I was afraid you'd say something like that.

That's $100 instead of like $25 for a basic switch.

e. Also, I needn't have spent so much on my fancy wifi router if all I was going to do is place an access point. :(

GobiasIndustries
Dec 14, 2007

Lipstick Apathy

Leperflesh posted:

Aww. I was afraid you'd say something like that.

That's $100 instead of like $25 for a basic switch.

e. Also, I needn't have spent so much on my fancy wifi router if all I was going to do is place an access point. :(

An EdgeRouter Lite is the go-to recommendation but really any router with gigabit ports should be fine, you can just disable the WiFi antennas on it to avoid having multiple wireless networks. Hell I think I still have an Asus RT-N16 that would work just fine for wired stuff, it was great but didn't have 5ghz Wifi. I can test it when I get home on Wednesday if you'd be interested, $40?

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

Leperflesh posted:

Aww. I was afraid you'd say something like that.

That's $100 instead of like $25 for a basic switch.

e. Also, I needn't have spent so much on my fancy wifi router if all I was going to do is place an access point. :(

You could run two network cables to the router.

You could spend way more money than a ER-Lite on a pair of managed switches, and then VLAN your cable modem over to the router.

Sentient Data
Aug 31, 2011

My molecule scrambler ray will disintegrate your armor with one blow!

CrazyLittle posted:

You could run two network cables to the router.

Bingo. One cable between modem and router wan, other cable between a switch and any lan port on the router (tplink gigabit 5-port has been both cheap and great for me)

E: are you sure you don't have a coax drop in a middle room? Some houses have multiple choices - if you have a line anywhere else, plug in the modem and see if it'll work

Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Sep 5, 2016

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

So basically, back to Plan A:

Leperflesh posted:

Obviously I could run the ethernet line from the cable modem, under the house, to the wifi router placed in the middle of the house... but then I'd need to run at least one ethernet line back to the office, in order to attach a switch and connect up our computers.

I knew this was an option, anyway.

The cable was installed fairly recently. There's actually a lot of older cable runs and poo poo stuck to the house - like, three separate defunct Dish TVs, all kinds of crap. But the Comcast I had installed a year ago, and at that time I just had them run a fresh one into the office, since there was already a hole in the wall there.

I want to put the wifi into the hall closet, which is right in the center of the house, and a nice place to conceal holes in the floor, runs of wiring, etc. Although it did just occur to me that there's no power outlet there. Hmm. Anyway, re-routing the cable internet didn't occur to me, and that might be a better option anyway.

Thanks for your help, guys. At least now I know what options will work.

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

Leperflesh posted:

I want to put the wifi into the hall closet,

Walls cut 5ghz bandwidth in half, btw.

Leperflesh posted:

there's no power outlet there.

That's a great use-case for a PoE-driven access point.

SEKCobra
Feb 28, 2011

Hi
:saddowns: Don't look at my site :saddowns:

CrazyLittle posted:

Walls cut 5ghz bandwidth in half, btw.

Well, drywall and cement don't have the same effect on signal strength.

Oddhair
Mar 21, 2004

Antillie posted:

The Lite supports 2x2 MIMO. So if your wifi client things only have 1x1 wifi adapters in them then upgrading those to 2x2 MIMO adapters will yield a significant performance improvement. Generally, this only an option for laptop and desktop PCs.

If you don't want the wifi on its own subnet then when you setup the ERX use the WAN+2LAN2 wizard and check the box for "Only use one LAN". But if you are happy with how everything is working at the moment there is no real reason to change things.

I suppose you could setup a guest wifi network. There are a couple of different ways you can do it (the AP built in method which is easier to setup vs the separate VLAN method which is more customizable/extensible) but it sounds like you don't really need a guest wifi network.

Same for VPN access. Its nice if you need it but for most people its probably not worth the hassle.

Thanks for your input.

I may add guest just so people can give it out, but likely they won't, or nobody will ask, or something. MIMO seems like it's just something automatic. All our phones have it, but I didn't try my phone, just the laptop with a USB adapter that definitely supports it, as well as one of their iPhones. Both of us were like 6' from the AP, though, which may be a bit tight and lower throughput, as well both were using Ookla's browser-based tests.

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

Yes MIMO is totally automatic. If the AP and the client both support MIMO then they will use the highest MIMO level that they both support without you needing to do anything.

I had 1x1 MIMO wifi adapters in a couple of my laptops and when I replaced them with 2x2 MIMO adapters my wifi throughput nearly doubled as my Unifi APs also supported 2x2 MIMO.

two_beer_bishes
Jun 27, 2004
Our internet has been lovely lately, the internet will drop out and won't come back until we reset the modem (several times a day, sometimes a couple times within an hour). Cable internet service through Optimum, they provide the modem and router, both of which we've replaced over the last couple weeks with no changes in reliability. I made an appointment for someone to come out on Sunday to check things out, but they said that it's $60 if it's a problem in our house but the fee is waived if the problem is with their service or their equipment. I have until Sunday morning to cancel the appointment, so I have until then to figure out if anything in my house is loving things up. I followed the coax wire from the living room to the basement where it hits the splitter, and it's all new (in the last 5 years when the whole house was rewired). What can I do in the meantime to see if it's something in my house that loving it up?

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





Splitters will cause signal loss that can trip up cable modems. You can try 1) plugging in your cable modem before the splitter and see if that helps and 2) log into your cable modem and view the signal strength.

Loads of info here - http://www.dslreports.com/faq/3332

It's also a good idea to replace any coax cables involved as they can cause the type of problem you're seeing if they are going bad.

Internet Explorer fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Sep 9, 2016

thebigcow
Jan 3, 2001

Bully!

two_beer_bishes posted:

Our internet has been lovely lately, the internet will drop out and won't come back until we reset the modem (several times a day, sometimes a couple times within an hour). Cable internet service through Optimum, they provide the modem and router, both of which we've replaced over the last couple weeks with no changes in reliability. I made an appointment for someone to come out on Sunday to check things out, but they said that it's $60 if it's a problem in our house but the fee is waived if the problem is with their service or their equipment. I have until Sunday morning to cancel the appointment, so I have until then to figure out if anything in my house is loving things up. I followed the coax wire from the living room to the basement where it hits the splitter, and it's all new (in the last 5 years when the whole house was rewired). What can I do in the meantime to see if it's something in my house that loving it up?

There should be a box on the outside of your house with the cable companies name on it. The cable from the street runs in one side, the cable to your house on the other. That side should be labeled customer and you should be able to open it. Sit outside with your cable modem, short piece of good coax, and a laptop. If it all works then you know you have to test individual runs of wires and splitters in the house, if it doesn't then its either the modem or the lines outside.

two_beer_bishes
Jun 27, 2004
Awesome, thanks guys. I'll take a look outside in the morning!

The Electronaut
May 10, 2009
So Ubiquiti has like no inventory on their 8 or 16 port poe switches in either the Unifi or EdgeMax lines.

I need at least 8 ports (4 ip cam, 1 ap, 2 drops, 1 backhaul to the bonus) right out of the gate in my house and at least 4 (with at least one port being POE, prefer to keep injectors out of the picture) in my detached bonus. What are my other options? Cisco SMB line, like the Cisco SF302-08PP?

two_beer_bishes
Jun 27, 2004

thebigcow posted:

There should be a box on the outside of your house with the cable companies name on it. The cable from the street runs in one side, the cable to your house on the other. That side should be labeled customer and you should be able to open it. Sit outside with your cable modem, short piece of good coax, and a laptop. If it all works then you know you have to test individual runs of wires and splitters in the house, if it doesn't then its either the modem or the lines outside.

I found the box and connected the modem directly to it and within 15min the internet cut out again, so I've pretty much determined that the fault isn't in the house. Thanks a lot for the advice fellas, I'll leave it to optimum to fix their poo poo!

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

Can I get a recommendation for a cheap dual-band access point? It doesn't need any router/special features or anything, just something basic to connect to the switch in my basement so I can get a stronger 5GHz signal down there. If I can install Gargoyle on it (since I'm familiar with it), that'd be cool but not necessary.

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Ashex
Jun 25, 2007

These pipes are cleeeean!!!
I'm running a E4200 V1 with DD-WRT and the wifi speed is absolutely poo poo at 20Mbps (stock firmware is pretty limited but I die get the full speed), I've tried many tweaks including following a guide I found for getting full speed back and have had minimal success. I'm paying for a 100Mbps internet connection and after suffering with poor wifi speeds for too long have decided to get a router that can run third-party firmware properly.

I really prefer running OpenWRT/DD-WRT/Tomato on the router since I make use of things like Static DHCP, DDNS, and DNS (setting an internal record for ssl magic) that I don't really find on stock firmware.

I'm planning to get a new wireless router that has enough bandwidth for me to move my media server to wireless as I'd like to move it from my bedroom where the router/modem are located. I'm not only using it for Plex but for hosting all my photos in RAW format that I work with in Lightroom so bandwidth is pretty important as otherwise latency will make editing a complete pain.

AC isn't a big requirement since none of my devices support it (I've already got a TrendNet 450Mbps adapter I could use for my desktop or media server). I've got a budget around 100€ but am slightly flexible on this. As previously mentioned, being able to run a third-party firmware is highly desired but if the stock firmware covers the requirements mentioned previously then I'm fine.

What would you guys suggest?

Edit Just learned about AsusWRT and AsusWRT-Merlin, anyone got experience with it and can comment on Wifi performance and 5Ghz support?

Ashex fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Sep 12, 2016

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