Superhub : Woeful WiFi performance, particularly downstairs from SuperHub 1

[Simcut]

Hi all

Hoping you can assist me here, I'm on the 120mbit package with VM, and I have a SuperHub 1.

I'm experiencing very poor WiFi performance, if you can picture I live in a 2 level house, and at the rear left corner of the upstairs is where the SuperHub is located (on the inner window sill, next to my PC).

I'm sat here at my working desk, next to the SuperHub and on my Samsung Galaxy S1 (GT-I9000) I'm getting link speed of 72mbps and signal strength Excellent, which isnt bad at all.

My main issue is whenever someone visits me and wants to use my WiFi, the strength is absolutely horrendous downstairs in the lounge, which is diagonally in the opposite corner of the house (ie. downstairs right corner nearest the front of the house). I've just gone down there to check what my phone shows, and it appears as Link Speed 5Mbps Signal Strength "Fair". Everyone that ever comes to the house whether it be using a tablet or mobile says that the WiFi is really bad.

Another thing is I have the TV in the diagonally opposite corner of the house to where the router is, and using Sky On Demand and the like is out of the question because the WiFi is absolute poop, which is a bit of annoyance, I'm also not able to use the live search feature on Sky because of the poor signal.

I'm not sure whether it's something within the walls of the house (house is only 20-25 years old in age mind you), or whether I've got dodgy settings on my SuperHub1?

Here are the settings I do have related to WiFi:-



Security Mode is set to WPA2-PSK[AES]

WPS Settings has Enable WPS ticked, but Enable Super Hub WPS Pin unticked

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to move the router downstairs, as I want to have my internet connection kept wired, if you guys arent able to assist I think my only options are to:-

a) ask VM for a SuperHub upgrade as the new SuperHub is meant to have a much greater WiFi signal strength output, so I've heard? the 2ac version apparently?
b) try a homeplug again, although I have used these before and they've died on me after a few months, previously used Belkin branded ones.
c) buy a separate router and connect it up at the bottom of the stairs close to the lounge door (there's a small table that has a phone, with a spare power socket), I could use the router as a booster for the WiFi?

Hope you guys can help!

If you need any more info please feel free to ask.

[Superblade7]

Simcut,

There is no issue with your settings just the SH1 is notorious for having crap WiFi.

All 3 of your proposed options would be better although with c) you'd be better just sticking the SH1 in modem mode and connecting your own router and using the WiFi from that. The SH2 has miles better WiFi although I'm not sure if the ac version is available yet (I'm sure one of the VM staff on here will confirm).

So really it depends what works for you but I'd give VM a ring first and see what they say as I'm sure they'd sort you out with a SH2 with you being on the top tier BB. You could even ask about the 'free' speed upgrades and (if it's available in your area) get your boost from 120Mb to 152Mb whilst you are at it.

Hope this helps.

[jb66]

Id try to get a new superhub2, see how it goes, if still poor then use option c

[Simcut]

Thanks, will give VM a call today.

[General Maximus]

I would do two things actually. Shub1 is famous for pants wireless performance and normally I would be telling you to buy a proper router and I would direct you to this post I made yesterday because I can't be bothered to type it all out again:

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I think I posted a link in your original thread for a suitable dongle. Something like this should work like a charm and it is the bargain price of £20 with free delivery. If you ever fancy making the jump to supreme awesomeness I would also suggest investing in a Linksys router such as this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linksys-E250...linksys+ea2700

In fact, as they are only £36 (cheapest they have ever been and is an amazing price for the calibre of the router) I would very strongly suggest you get one now (along with anyone else reading this who needs a new router or is having a problem with the shub).

£56 for a cracking router and wireless dongle from Linksys is a supreme bargain. They are going to kick ass and provide you with stability, performance and reliability for a long time and is well worth the investment.

buttttttttttt, to make things even better I would also ring up VM and see if you can wangle a shub2 for free out of them as well and use both the shub2 and proper router on your network. The reason I say it is this:

Your situation is very similar to mine and I'll explain a portion of the network in my house and how I solved the problem you have got (not that I had it to start off with because I have always used a proper router). Like you, my shub comes into a bedroom top back left of the house and my sitting room with tv, bluray, media player and sky are front bottom right. There is also a bedroom front top right of the house (above the sitting room) which also has tv, bluray, sky and media player. I have run a cable from the shub room to the front bedroom where there is a switch connecting the devices in that bedroom to the network. From the switch there is also a cable running across the room, out the wall (where Sky comes in), down the front of the house and into the sitting room to a router which acts as a wireless access point and to which the devices are connected downstairs.

I have put it simply and there are more switches involved and other stuff going on around the house but the simplest way of looking at it is that I have run a cable downstairs so that stuff like my Sky has a wired connection which is reliable and fast and I also have a wireless access point for my tablets, phones and full coverage downstairs and I have got my primary router (shub in your case) taking care of upstairs.
The whole thing might sound like too much work and a lot of faff but it is worth it. You are making a long term investment in the network infrastructure for your house (you are always going to have sky/tablets/phones) so it is worth putting the right equipment in place to make sure everything can work properly because your demands are only going to increase in the future.

The two 15m patch cables I bought were £12 each, the router was £50, the switch was £28 (8 ports because I need it for other stuff as well) and the patch cables for the various devices were around £10 so altogether you are looking at around £115 for the whole lot and I paid an electrician £50 to come and drill some holes in the wall to run the cable downstairs.


@simcut: Thomas Newman is a great composer and I love many pieces of his music. My favourite has got to be the soundtrack to Meet Joe Black and I love "That Next Place"

[Simcut]

Cheers for the advice there, will have to look into a router.

I rang up VM Sales (are they american or in the Philippines?) and they are going to send me a SuperHub 2 but there's a £5.99 charge for delivery, which will arrive on Tuesday, and I can then ring them up when I get the Hub so they can activate it, and put me on the 152mb package..

[General Maximus]

sweet, £6 for delivery is no biggy. Hookup shub 2 and see how things go. Remember to set your wireless ssid, password and aes for encryption. You will definitely notice an improvement, it is just a question of whether the signal strength/throughput will be enough for you. Give it a week and see what you think and if you feel you want more then you will have to consider plan B.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Simcut

Cheers for the advice there, will have to look into a router.

I rang up VM Sales (are they american or in the Philippines?) and they are going to send me a SuperHub 2 but there's a £5.99 charge for delivery, which will arrive on Tuesday, and I can then ring them up when I get the Hub so they can activate it, and put me on the 152mb package..

That sounds like good news! The SH2 is excellent.

You should get all the service you need from the SH2 without deploying modem-only mode, unless you want some of the applications you can get from a full router. However if you have a larger house, even the best routers will give you reduced speed in extreme corners. To get full speed in all corners run a Cat 5e cable up to your attic or the furthest room and run a wireless access point from it. ( A cheap router not in DHCP mode will be fine.) Ensure that it transmits at 300Mb at least.

[Superblade7]

Originally Posted by Simcut

I rang up VM Sales (are they american or in the Philippines?) and they are going to send me a SuperHub 2 but there's a £5.99 charge for delivery, which will arrive on Tuesday, and I can then ring them up when I get the Hub so they can activate it, and put me on the 152mb package..

Glad you got it sorted, I'm sure you'll notice a marked improvement with the SH2.

[qasdfdsaq]

Wireless does not have infinite range. It is limited by law and the best way around the maximum range of any one router is to add more routers/APs as GM described.

[Simcut]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Wireless does not have infinite range. It is limited by law and the best way around the maximum range of any one router is to add more routers/APs as GM described.

Well yeah, I realise that, but I would expect it to be at least viable within my property and at best sat out in the back garden, but thats pushing it a bit

[General Maximus]

in an ideal world yes, but you get what you pay for and when VM bang stuff out for free it doesn't always work properly. Although shub1 was made on the cheap, I think it cost VM in the long run indirectly because the number of complaints and tech support calls they had (especially about wireless) must have been unreal. Shub2 has gone a long way to address those issues but you still can't beat buying your own proper router. As an extension of what I suggested earlier, not only could you/ I have bought an additional router to extend my wireless range throughout my house, I also bought a new router (first) simply to act as my primary router and put the shub in modem mode (I have actually been doing it since before shub's existed). Routers have many features and if you are going to use multiple media devices on your network then you need to have decent equipment which can support them. As an example, you mentioned you had Sky, and I also have media players and bluray players in addition to my tablets etc. All of those devices have apps on them and will require access to resources on the internet. I don't like the idea of having to rely on VM's DNS servers to make sure all the devices which I use and enjoy work properly. Sooooo, I use a proper router where I can statically set my own DNS servers (which you cant do on the shub) and then that information is handed down to each device through dhcp and everything works absolutely super duper spiffingly great. (shub's have also been known to throw tantrums when too many devices start accessing the network simultaneously and try doing different things at the same time).

[Simcut]

Thanks for all the advice, I meant to reply earlier and say that your setup is kinda similar in some regard. For example, I drilled a hole in the wall in my room and fed an ethernet cable from the hub, round the house to the rear right corner room, which is a study/spare bedroom and drilled a hole in that room to feed the ethernet cable through so that I could have wired internet.

Will definitely have to explore getting a router again, I used to have a black netgear router that I used with the old Virgin Media Hub back when I was on 20 or 50mbit, cant remember exactly, think it was a WNR2000 - used to work really well, mind you, it's old now.

You recommended a Linksys router but I've had a bad history with them to be honest, back in the day with the old blue & black mixed colour routers, they were horrendous! and I think £50 is a bit steep to be honest, dont want to pay that high if I can help it, so I will see how things are with the SuperHub 2 first

Thanks again for all the advice man!

By the way, noticed your edit to an earlier post and you mentioned about Thomas Newman, absolutely love his stuff, such an amazing composer, massively underrated! Although not the same, have you heard of a group called Hammock? they produce beautiful "post-rock" which is like ambient rock, you really need to check them out!

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Simcut

Well yeah, I realise that, but I would expect it to be at least viable within my property and at best sat out in the back garden, but thats pushing it a bit

You should get a signal in the garden particularly if there are few walls between the WiFi source and the receiver. I can stream music 20m down the garden because there is only a glass door to obstruct. Also my phone logs onto the system as I approach the house from the front drive.

Inside the house a lot depends on how big the place is and how many internal walls and metal obstructions like fridges there are.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by Simcut

have you heard of a group called Hammock? they produce beautiful "post-rock" which is like ambient rock, you really need to check them out!

I'll look them up on youtube now. As for the Linksys router, it was £35 yesterday so I don't know why it has shot back up to £55 over night. It would have been a bargain.