Tired of fighting with WIFI adapters? Me too. I fixed it grandma

[korilius]

I'd wager most of you have had issues at one point or another when using wireless networking adapters with any flavor of Linux. Me too. I finally got sick of it. I'm struggling to realize why I failed to think of this sooner. I bought a wifi extender from TP-Link that worked flawlessly out of the box. It has an RJ45 jack on it. I then bought an 8 port switch as well. Run cable from extender to switch. Attach PC(s) to switch. No more wlan issues. All for ~$50.00. Hope it helps.

Here's what I purchased:
The Extender
The Switch

[CharlesV]

Excellent work around and thanks for posting!

Just curious, what is your download speed using this connect, versus wired up NOT on the extender? (most extenders cut your speeds - some as much as by half and NOT including if you have poor Wi-Fi signal.)

[FullScale4Me]

Extender bandwidth is much slower due to two wireless links in use. Most times close to half. When used as an AP device expect it to be nearly as fast as a wireless router with ethernet connection to the existing router.

Why nearly? The CPU power and buffering capacity of most extenders is significantly less than the big boy wireless routers costing 3X to 5X more.

He's using the extender in AP mode. So essentially its a router and a switch cascaded. All extenders have no LAN ports, the only difference between it and a regular router.

Anyone contemplating doing this:

1) The cheapest extenders do NOT have an ethernet jack.

2) Not all extenders can be placed in AP Mode.


Edited to clarify 1st paragraph.

[Stevo]

At the price of el cheapo or used smartphones, setting one of those to use the wi-fi network and then tethering it to the Linux computer could be another option.

[korilius]

Excellent work around and thanks for posting!

Just curious, what is your download speed using this connect, versus wired up NOT on the extender? (most extenders cut your speeds - some as much as by half and NOT including if you have poor Wi-Fi signal.)

Thanks. My download speeds are about the same as it was on wifi. I get about 80Mbps u/d on a 200Mbps u/d connection.

[korilius]

Extender bandwidth is much slower due to two wireless links in use. Most times close to half.

He's using the extender in AP mode. So essentially its a router and a switch cascaded. All extenders have no LAN ports, the only difference between it and a regular router.

Anyone contemplating doing this:

1) The cheapest extenders do NOT have an ethernet jack.

2) Not all extenders can be placed in AP Mode.

It should go without saying - "check what I bought, do you research, decide for yourself."

I didn't notice slowdowns from before and after. Everyone's mileage will vary of course. I bought a refurb of what I linked in the original post for ~$18.00 and the switch was about ~$20.00.

[korilius]

At the price of el cheapo or used smartphones, setting one of those to use the wi-fi network and then tethering it to the Linux computer could be another option.

I can see using that in a pinch. Great idea Stevo!

[FullScale4Me]

It should go without saying - "check what I bought, do you research, decide for yourself."

I didn't notice slowdowns from before and after. Everyone's mileage will vary of course. I bought a refurb of what I linked in the original post for ~$18.00 and the switch was about ~$20.00.

My bad for not being clearer. A big reason that I never post rough drafts online. I usually print them on paper and then add notes while relaxing to music or videos. That printout ends up looking like a toddler scribbled on it.

I'll change my post to:

"Extender bandwidth is much slower due to two wireless links in use. Most times close to half. When used as an AP device expect it to be nearly as fast as a wireless router with an ethernet connection to the existing router."

Why nearly? The CPU power and buffering capacity of most extenders is significantly less than the big boy wireless routers costing 3X to 5X more.

[CharlesV]

Excellent work around and thanks for posting!

Just curious, what is your download speed using this connect, versus wired up NOT on the extender? (most extenders cut your speeds - some as much as by half and NOT including if you have poor Wi-Fi signal.)

Thanks. My download speeds are about the same as it was on wifi. I get about 80Mbps u/d on a 200Mbps u/d connection.

Yup, thats pretty good if its close to your regular wi-fi speeds. I have lost count how many of those devices I have pulled and thrown away and those are the number one thing we pull when we go into a place and hear the 'wifi speeds are horrible' ;-/

Around 90% of the time we find that those extenders half the speeds or more, and you couple that with a weak signal and it all becomes pretty bad.

Glad that worked for you and excellent work around for anyone having trouble - just watch those speeds :-)

[FullScale4Me]

The only thing worse than these extenders in WiFi mode is the power line network extenders.

The last one I encountered in the wild made me nostalgic for dial-up networking. I showed them how to snake a floor-to-floor ethernet wire alongside a forced air heating duct. Builder left huge gaps, I could have run all ethernet! They had 2 routers onsite so it got reused.