WiFi connections in two bedroom house

[bantu1957]

Hi,

On the 17th of this month I became a happy user of VM 200M broadband. Equipped with Hub 3 and expecting miracles. When everything was connected and brought to live, everything seemed ok, but after a couple of days the speeds and range all over the house drastically /in my opinion/ went down. My Hub 3 router is placed on the top of the wardrobe in the sitting room, where Tv Box is located as well. My PC is on the first floor, no more than 4 meters from the hub, but there is of course ceiling on the way. My speed on a very good PC is now around 80Mgbits. In the small room next to the bedroom where PC is the speed is no more than 30Mgbits, but in the loo just after small room 0. Same thing in the kitchen which is no more than 5 meters from HUB 3. Nothing outside! Time to react! Bought TP Link AX23 - no improvement, bought Wavlink tri band AC3000 with three nodes, speed at PC back to normal around 208 Mgbits, but unfortunately one of the nodes was broken down and I had to send it back to Amazon. Any idea of what can improve range and speed? I have read many reviews of an equipment that I could potentially buy, but after two days research, I just got headache and I am completely lost. Some says buy AX, some say buy AC but with 3 band and some say - just single router will be ok. But my friendship with router ended after a day sending it back to Amazon. Any suggestions? I want to get what I am paying for.

[Anonymous]

You have some nice kit but the hub connection needs to be okay for it all to work together properly. If you are in modem mode log in to the hub settings at 192.168.100.1, don't log in and select the Check Router Status link and copy and paste all of the tables from the various tabs here. 

[bantu1957]

The problem is that when the hub is in modem mode I cannot get in, because my PC and laptop won't connect to the router. No LAN. Weird, but what to do? Only full reset brings hub back to normal. Also changed channels to a very high and that helped a bit.

[Anonymous]

Try 192.168.0.1 in router mode 

[Tudor]

There is a special sequence to set up modem mode.

How to put a VM hub into modem mode:

 1) Access your hub on 192.168.0.1, sign on and put it into modem mode. On the Hub3 the bottom LED will change to magenta. Best done from a wired connection.

2) Turn off the hub and disconnect any Ethernet cables

3) Fully initialise your own router or mesh master unit and make sure the WAN port is set to DHCP

4) Connect your router or mesh master unit to the VM hub with an Ethernet cable, Cat5e or Cat6, any higher specification is a waste of money

5) Turn on the VM hub. 

6) You should now be able to access the internet and the hub will now be on 192.168.100.1

Note: this only needs doing once for each new router or VM changes your WAN IP address.

[bantu1957]

Hub 3 is giving the speed that I expect i modem or router mode. The problem is the range. In the same room it is ok, but if you go upstairs or to the kitchen the speeds drop down to 1/6. I was on BT with two discs and the speed was the same everywhere. Even I got a decent speeds in the garden or garage which is like 15 meters away. I did not cancel my contract with BT, just in case. So in short conclusion, Hub3 is generally rubbish on range and speeds. My question is what should I buy to improve the range. As I wrote I tested Archer AX 23 - rubbish same as Hub3 even worse, Wavlink was good but not stable and one of the nodes was broken down. Both were sent back. When I look at mesh systems at Amazon they are all great all superb and will give you the range from your house to your work place. Will good router do the job? And which one is good enough, or should I buy a mesh system for 1000 pounds and still be not happy?

[carl_pearce]

What budget do you have?

Something like the below should be sufficient:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-M4-Seamless-Coverage-Replacement/dp/B07NH1J543

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-M5-Coverage-Replacement-Antivirus/dp/B071241G3R

[bantu1957]

My budget for mesh or router is up to 200 quid. What do you think about Tenda Nova which is Tri band.

[jbrennand]

You can get much better than the Nova for £200. See this triband - albeit wifi5 still

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Linksys-WHW0303B-Tri-Band-Extender-Compatible/dp/B07RK4Y6P7/

[bantu1957]

I was thinking about this. What do you think? There is 25% discount so is under 200.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09JZHZ9LD/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_8JF8RMFFNT0W9S97WJVX_3