I created a thread about my internet going out every night at 3:40am and people say its a power issue since the router powers off at that time when i take a look at the router. Now want to ask a ethernet wired question vs wifi internet.
So to sum it up, i am living in a furnished apartment that includes everything including internet. Problem is internet is wifi only so i cannot do wired. Obviously i prefered wired. I live about 3 floors up from where the router is located. I was told internet is very fast and reliable but some times it does get a bit slow and it definitely is.
In the room where the router is located, there is 2 routers. Well one i think is a router and the other is the modem/router. One is TP Link Wr340gd router. The other is a linksys cisco modem/router… not 100 percent sure. There are many wires that are connected to the tp link wr340gd router. What i found strange was there were 2 wires that connected it to 2 different apartments that are in the same floor as where the router is. Does that mean those 2 apartments they connected an ethernet wire and connect it wired internet? Those 2 wires… each one of them go from that room… to their apartment. And thus i can do wired as well if i can connect an ethernet cable from my laptop all the way to that router? Note… there is only one spot left in the back of the router left to put in another ethernet cable. The other wires are all filled up.
I also want to mention there are 2 wifi connections. Lets call them Connection A and Connection B. Both have the same password if i want to connect to either one. I always choose connection A. But if connection A has problems or doesn’'t work, i choose B. Usually one of them will work very good while the other is either good, okay or not that good. So i always see these 2 connections when im on my laptop until that time of course. However what i found strange is why is it always one connection works while the other i cannot connect to?
What i want to know is does that mean i can just buy a very long ethernet cable and then connect it to that router to my laptop then i would get a very fast and reliable internet connection? The thing is this… in my apartment… there is another door that i had no clue what it went to. I opened it and then it actually goes downstairs and if you go downstairs a few floors down or so… the router is all the way down there. I had thought couldn’t i just use an ethernet cable and plug it to my laptop then extend and then have it go through the bottom of that door and when i have that door opened… i just drop the ethernet cable all the way down to where the router is? Then once i do that, i then walk downstairs to the room where the router is and then plug it into one of the ethernet ports? The thing is i can actually walk downstairs from that other exit but its kind of tough walking down those stairs as oppose to a regular staircase when i open my regular door. And the other thing is i cannot connect the long ethernet cable from my laptop to the router from my main apartment door to that room directly b/c that wire would be obstructing the staircase if you know what i mean.
I guess thats the reason why my apartment have that other door next to it where you open it and its basically like another way to get downstairs?
Because the person told me there isn’t wired internet just wireless… but then when i saw there were 2 ethernet cables that connected from the router and then saw it went to 2 differerent apt on same floor… i thought aren’t they doing wired instead of wifi?
The other thing is i actually saw there was an ethernet cable that went from the router that went all the way upstairs. Its like an ethernet cable that hanged a few floors up near my apartment. However… the ethernet cable seemed to be attached to these white spots on the wall? Im not sure how to say it but imagine the router… then a blue ethernet cable connected to it that went all the way up to the ceiling… only difference is its like stuck to white tape a few inches every few spots away. Does anyone know what i mean by this? I guess its like this so that ethernet cable would be more stable?
So if i connect it wired with an ethernet cable, would i have to do the same thing like that blue ethernet cable that is connected from router and goes all the way upstairs? Or can i just basically just drop the ethernet cable like that downstairs. It would like im dropping a rope a few floors down if you know what i mean.
I dont mind wifi but i hear wifi is much slower than wired and not stable. So would you say its better for me to do this? Also i think i probably would need minimum 50 feet wire? I know for sure a 20 feet wire wouldn’t be long enough if i had to attach this cable and have it go a few floors down if you know what i mean.
Just want to make sure before i go and buy a 50 or 100 feet ethernet cable.
See that device is put there by the network people, they said that you can only connect to it via wireless, they said you are not to run a cable to it.
The wires running it to it may be the network backbone and NOT FOR END USERS.
So your looking does nothing, Even if it may look like a regular access point, but it may be used as a custom access point. (it may be a commercial model ,but with linux installed !)
As for cable length, 100 metres is basically the limit for ethernet, so 100 feet is only 1/3rd of max.
Yes wired is faster and more reliable than Wifi. Wifi, like the old Ethernet 10Mps hubs, you share the total bandwidth with everyone else in the area. If you have “G” Wifi (most likely) you get the 54Mbps and share it, Transmission quality falls off with distance and the device compensates with slower transmissions. (and/or you get a lot of dropped packets)
Still, depend what the throughput of the service is. Is it cable or telephone DSL? Either way, odds are you have the simplest service, somewhere between 7Mbps and about 20Mbps. You would have to get a really crappy Wifi connection or be sharing it with a lot of other people (all using it at once) for the wifi not the internet be the bottleneck. (Also, most home internet modems and routers are 100Mbps, even if most modern devices can do 1Gbs
I assume the “WAN” (Internet) port of the TP-Link goes into a port on the modem/router. If so, odds are the modem may be set to “pass-thru” all traffic passed to the TP. If that’s the case, plugging anything into any open ports on the modem may not have any benefit.
Go to speedtest.org or similar and see what your effective throughput is. Then haul your laptop downstairs and plug into a spare port on the TP router, see if there’s any improvement. (If there are not any unconnected ports on the router, what’s the point unless you know enough to put a small switch down there and connect it to the router.
It’s possible the extra wires go to “access points” that provide the wifi signal, spread over the building, to give complete coverage. Or those greedy first-floor occupants have wired Ethernet. The trick is to figure it out.
Network 101 - connect to either wifi. figure out the IP address scheme and the MAC address of the wifi device. Open a DOS box…
IPCONFIG /ALL will tell you your IP address, the subnet range and the default gateway address.
ARP -A will list the MAC addresses of who you are talking to.
IP address will be of the form x.x.x.x (i.e. 192.168.0.101) subnet mask is like 255.255.255.0 - this indicates that all addresses in subnet are the same except for the zero part, ie. 1-254 for last digit. The default gateway is where your internet traffic goes - either the router or the access point. (i.e. lets say likely 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.9.254)
ARP -A and match that address gives a MAC address for the gateway. You can google “Ethernet manufacturer codes” for the first 6 digits of the MAC. (i.e. MAC= 00:12:E4:55:c1:F0 - the 00-12-E4 indicates the manufacturer). Of course the company names have changed, Cisco bought Linksys, etc. but likely you can match up the MAC to device. If you can pick up and turn over the device, it may havethe MAC on the label.
It’s possible that they are going cheap and there are additional routers, not access points, on those cable runs from the router.
If there is a cable run hanging free, not connected to a device near your apartment, plug into it and see if it is live. (You can get a double-end plug if there’s not enough slack, to connect that end to another cable.) If it’s live, and not hooked up, maybe that saves you 100 feet of cable run. If it’s not live, odds are the other end is dangling too. Maybe that was meant for a third wifi device.
Note the maximum cable run for Ethernet is 300 feet (actually, 90m). I doubt you exceed this.
If your wifi goes out at a regular time and is otherwise reliable, plugging in an Ethernet cable won’t make it more reliable. Wired Ethernet rules out wifi signal variation and loss of signal. But if your router is rebooting at a certain time every day, it doesn’t matter whether you’re wired or wireless.
Wifi is only slower than Ethernet for LAN stuff (transferring files between your home computers). The internet connection is usually the bottleneck, and is much slower than wifi or Ethernet maximums, unless you’re on gigabit fiber or something crazy.
Let us know what kind of cable connects to the one you think is a modem. Typically, we see
coax going to modem
RJ45 (cat5) going from modem to router
router may have additional Rj45 (cat5) cables going to other routers, other wireless access points, or hardwired computers.
In addition, your “modem” may be a “modem+wireless router”.
I can’t figure out why only one would ever work. Normally, both would work, and occasionally, neither would work. It’s possible you have two completely different internet connections (so, both are “modem + router”, or the modems are elsewhere).
Note which boxes have antennas and let us know, in addition to the wiring. That’ll help.
Not sure I recommend plugging your computer into a wire you see dangling. It could be a number of different things, and I’m not sure an Ethernet interface can tolerate all the possibilities.