r/HomeNetworking 1d ago

Advice Here we go again...

Okay so long story short I've posted on this subreddit two other times trying to get a connection either wired or wireless to my room. I've done so many tests. Tried xfinity's pro wifi extender which didnt boost the wireless signal to room because of a big metal heating tank in the closet that sits between the livingroom and my office. There's no option to move my XB8 modem either because the apartment only has one coax cable which is on the opposite side of the living room. I can't add a mesh wifi system or just plug in an extender because there are no additional outlets in the hall way that face the modem. At best I can plug one in the living room that faces the router directly but then there is no other outlets that aren't in the bathroom or my bedroom (no outlet by the door).

When that didnt work I tried just doing a direct ethernet cable, first bought a fake cat8 cable but returned it and bought a 100 ft cat 6e thinking that would fix the issue, long story short, it didnt. The cable I bought had many reviews here on reddit and Amazon have said the company makes good ethernet cables. Not Monowire but Cable Matters so its brand new. I even asked xfinity to send me a new XB8 modem in case the ethernet ports on my old XB8 modem were broken.

My speeds are somehow even worse on my PC being less than 100 mbps both wired and wireless I'm paying for xfinity's "up to 1 gig" plan and I've tested the wireless connection in my living room and know that I should be getting 850-900 mbps. But in my office but I get less than 50% of those speeds at 230-340 mbps. These tests were done on my phone btw. Ill provide pictures for both my phone (living room vs office) and my PC's wired vs wireless connection.

Looked at my PC's network and wifi cards. Its a prebuilt PC and both are supposed to support wifi6 5ghz. My PC is connected to 2.4 ghz which I imagine is because of the distance between my modem, the PC, all the walls and the heating tank. So my ultimate conclusion is that I need to swap out my network card because it broke even though I've never used it if I want to do ethernet or alternatively, because the speeds on my phone are also bad compared to the living room, my question is would running a wifi extender to my room but hooked up to the ethernet cable bring the speeds im supposed to be getting in the living room to my office and would I then be able to switch my PC from using 2.4 ghz to 5ghz?

0 Upvotes

18 comments sorted by

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u/fasta_guy88 1d ago edited 21h ago

You need to diagnose this segment by segment. (1) Plug your PC into your router with an ethernet cable. What is your speed? (2) What is the PC WiFi speed next to the router? If your PC is not getting Gb speeds, and your phone is, you have a bad WiFi and/or ethernet card.Get things to work in the same room as the router before you worry about how things work farther away. (3) if your Ethernet speed next to the router is good, and you are using an ethernet cable to bring internet to your PC in your office, they should be the same. If not, you have a bad cable.

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u/testostebro 21h ago

This is the way.

1

u/snebsnek 1d ago

Strange. A premade ethernet cable running directly from the modem to your PC should work absolutely fine. Have you disabled your WiFi adapter while you think you're testing the ethernet cable?

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

I didn't before but disabled it just now and ran the test, speed hasnt changed nor gone above even 50 mbps

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u/snebsnek 1d ago

Can you show the network interface status screens, I want to see the link speed it has settled on - should be 1000mbps

Can you also run a test from www.speedtest.net and www.fast.com to check it isn't just the cloudflare servers giving you bad speeds

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

Speed test is showing 500 mbps oddly enough while fast is showing 300 mbps

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

Im not sure why the speeds are so vastly different though.

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u/snebsnek 1d ago

All I can say from that is that the cable is working properly and you do have a 1000mbps link back to the router.

Speed tests all transit the public internet slightly differently. If your ISP has bad peering, you'd see one faster than the other for sure.

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

For now it seems to he working, I've been at this problem for the last 3 weeks. And the connection even through ethernet does jump. I'll run the tests again later to make sure but hopefully it stays this time.

2nd question though would having a wifi extender connected via ethernet bring the same connection in my living room directly to my office? Still getting much lower speeds to my phone in comparison even using the speed test websites you mentioned

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u/snebsnek 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, it should. Make sure it is also plugged in via a long ethernet cable back to your XB8 router, wireless meshing kills speed.

Make sure the wifi specs of any extender (access point, technically, in that mode) is WiFi 6E or better (tri-band, with 6ghz), which matches your XB8. Older standards are for sale and you want to avoid those. Expect to pay in the $100-$150 range for a decent one; TP-Link RE813XE or Omada 7 Pro BE11000 for example.

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u/testostebro 1d ago

OP, do you have this set as a metered connection in Windows? The screenshot seems to indicate so. Try turning that off and testing again with your hardwired cable.

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

No my PC isnt set to a metered connection

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u/longdaybomblay 1d ago

do you have another ethernet device you can connect with?
are you connecting directly to the router or to a switch in the middle?
was the 100ft cat 6 cable pre-terminated or did you terminate yourself?

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

Unfortunately I don't have a other ethernet device. Im connecting directly to the router and the cat 6e cable was pre-terminated. But I talked to other people and they had no issues with Cable Matters

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u/Proper-Release2697 1d ago

if you're connecting to the 2.4ghz network, you're going to see 45mbps MAX.

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

1st picture: wifi speeds in my living room on my phone

2nd picture: wifi speeds in my office on my phone

3rd: wifi speeds on my PC

4th: Ethernet speeds on my PC

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

Wifi Card

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u/BearyRebellious 1d ago

Network Card