Settings for laptop to switch to strongest wireless signal
I am working with someone who has a 4 story, 5,000 sq ft house built in the 1930's.
We are using R7000 Nighthawk router and a EX6200 WIFI Range Extender.
The SSID of the NIghthawk is Albany. The SSID of the extender is Albany-EXT.
The 4 users all have laptops and roam about the house. What is happening is that they may have a very strong signal in one part of the house from Albany... but as they move to another part of the house, that signal fades... and Albany-EXT increases... but the laptop does not switch to the stronger SSID.
What settings (either router/extender or PC) should I be looking at to facilitate their devices switching to the strongest signal?
Should I make all the SSIDs the same?
The PCs are W7, W8, MS Surface.
Thanks for any suggestions.
We are using R7000 Nighthawk router and a EX6200 WIFI Range Extender.
The SSID of the NIghthawk is Albany. The SSID of the extender is Albany-EXT.
The 4 users all have laptops and roam about the house. What is happening is that they may have a very strong signal in one part of the house from Albany... but as they move to another part of the house, that signal fades... and Albany-EXT increases... but the laptop does not switch to the stronger SSID.
What settings (either router/extender or PC) should I be looking at to facilitate their devices switching to the strongest signal?
Should I make all the SSIDs the same?
The PCs are W7, W8, MS Surface.
Thanks for any suggestions.
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Joshua Grantom
Changing them to the same SSID could cause issues because the wireless devices cannot tell the difference and will jump back and forth between the two. This will cause an unreliable browsing experience.
He is having an unreliable browsing experience. I've set up a 30+ node WAP network using 40$ routers, setting every device the same SSID, following that link I provided. This is the way to do it.
As long as they are all on the same IP subnet yes, That is also assuming they can be connected with network cable. Using an extender usually means they do not have access to a network jack or cable in that area.
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To make the hand off seamless, you have to make both sids the and the same password, then it will switch over to the stronger signal.
Above is great information that Natty posted. I will tell you, the DD-wrt wireless bridging to each other and then rebroadcasting a second SSID was a disaster. It would work, but when 1000+ users would saturate the network, the devices would crawl... I was told you need a device with at least a 1GHz proc and 16MB memory for that function to work as desired. The wrt54g's I used only had 8MB.
To make the hand off seamless, you have to make both sids the and the same password, then it will switch over to the stronger signal....but only if the thresholds have been reached.
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Thanks for the comments. Right now the Extender connection to the router is wireless.
When the computers are in the area of the Extender, they can get an excellent connection to the extender.
So not sure what the comment "you connect the router to the AP wireless and you will only be able to connect devices to the AP via cable as your wireless capability in the AP are being used to sustain the link to the router." We are definitely wireless with both.
We only have four users + visitors... so I am going to try to set the extender to the same SSID and see what happens. Will report back. Thanks for all the comments so far.
One other question... are their options I can set on the NIC to facilitate the switching to the stronger access point?
When the computers are in the area of the Extender, they can get an excellent connection to the extender.
So not sure what the comment "you connect the router to the AP wireless and you will only be able to connect devices to the AP via cable as your wireless capability in the AP are being used to sustain the link to the router." We are definitely wireless with both.
We only have four users + visitors... so I am going to try to set the extender to the same SSID and see what happens. Will report back. Thanks for all the comments so far.
One other question... are their options I can set on the NIC to facilitate the switching to the stronger access point?
ASKER
I was not able to set the extender to the same SSID. On the R7000 I had previously set the 2 and 5 Ghz SSIDs to the same name. When I tried to set the extender the same way... it would not accept it. Odd that I could do it on the router, but not the extender.
In any case, I advised the client that for now, when things look slow... check the access point that they are connected to and change if necessary.
In any case, I advised the client that for now, when things look slow... check the access point that they are connected to and change if necessary.