I got 99 problems but my WiFi ain't one

I found alot of my devices stick to the 2.4 when the coverage on 5 is fine. I deactivated my 2.4 band on my main network and everything works great.

If the range won't cover then obviously you already know a unifi on that cable would solve if you can't hardwire. I've got a flex HD, might find that a bit more compact and better looking?

If it is the root of the problem, @aggi might also be able to disable 2.4ghz on the device itself, depending on the hardware.

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Just checked and looked like it is connecting on 5G.

Discovered these which would be a pretty neat solution if I bolted it onto the back box where the ethernet comes out.
https://www.4gon.co.uk/ubiquiti-unifi-apaciw-in-wall-access-pointubiquiti-unifi-ac-inwall-access-point-uapaciw-p-6920.html

I do also have a plan of shifting my server into the cupboard under the stairs (need to clear it out and chop into one of the network cables that go up the stairs to get network access) so I guess I could move the AP from the living room to there, may speed things up.

I am looking for a range extender.
Current setup has the modem and router in the living room.
It reaches most of the house, but is patchy in the doormer bedroom.

Middle floor will host 2 x home working setups.

Thinking something like this TP Link (have a tp link router, so expecting it to play nicely)?

Don't want to go full on mesh system (price is a motivator) just to iron out some weak spots.

Or are powerline adaptors a better choice?

I only did a brief search but I saw that tplink you posted on Amazon for 65. This 3 piece mesh is 98.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-M4-Seamless-Coverage-Replacement/dp/B07NH1J543/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?crid=YWAI38J45SIB&keywords=deco+m4&qid=1663356990&sprefix=deco+m4%2Caps%2C92&sr=8-4

I think this would be infinitely better option. for the price difference.

Much smarter and will solve pretty much any issue you have.

The original fibre was put in by Orange. I finally got round to signing up with them in the morning. The technician came round the same day. Pursed his lips. Made a phone call to his boss, and ran out the full length of an 80m cable to fix us up, including climbing over the fence of the abandoned house with his ladder. He also gave us his phone number and told us to contact him personally if we had any problems.

So yeah, paying the extra 10 euros a month that Orange costs was money well spent.

Not wifi but ....

I need to run an Ethernet cable in through an external wall. Ideally this needs to come in at about 1m from ground level. How to I avoid a tight bend from vertical section to horizontal?

Best I can come up with is drilling out the external side of the hole for the cable to a larger diameter to give it a bit more space to bend, then covering it over with a junction box.

Success!

Ideally this needs to come in at about 1m from ground level. How to I avoid a tight bend from vertical section to horizontal?

Are you running the cable vertically down the external wall to the inside? Or from the inside and vertically down to the ground? If the former, you'll need to do a drip loop too.

Ethernet hates sharp bends but you only need to be a few degrees away from 90 to avoid any issues. As long as its a few degrees over 90 and the conductors haven't been pulled at right angles under tension, you should be fine. Be careful that staples or cable clips have a bit of wiggle room too...pinching is almost as bad as kinks.

As you can see from this photo, you don't normally get a tight 90 degree kink when running a cable through a wall. Its usually quite curved. This is fine.

You're right to be worried. A hyperoptic engineer ran an ethernet cable with a sharp 90 degree bend to our flat last year. Lasted until the heatwave and then just crapped out a few weeks ago.

Here's a (grainy) photo of a bad bend and a good bend. I'll leave it to you to figure out which one failed!

2 Attachments

Are you running the cable vertically down the external wall to the inside? Or from the inside and vertically down to the ground?

Not quite sure I understand the difference, but the former I think: horizontally through the wall then down to the ground externally. So entry point is higher than the vertical section, making a drip loop redundant no?

Edit: saw your picture. It'll be coming from below (outside) in to the wall from where it's crossed a path so no trouble.

That hole looks quite big but then my render will probably blow out anyway if drilling from inside so may not need opening out.

Is that to stop bad internet from coming back up the line?

Snort. Virus protection. They can't change direction 180 degrees.

That hole looks quite big but then my render will probably blow out anyway if drilling from inside so may not need opening out

I suppose the shorter way of me to say the above would have been 90 degrees is fine if your radius is large enough.

As for blowout, if you can get a mate to push a plank against the exterior while you're drilling that night help. Either that or go outside in...it's easier to repair an internal wall than external. Most people just accept the external blowout and use a blowout cover to hide it tbh.

I suppose the shorter way of me to say the above would have been 90 degrees is fine if your radius is large enough.

Yeah it was inferred 👍 in fact I just remembered one of the rj45 sockets in my skirting is going unused, might just drill from behind that and from there can patch to the spot I need it. Should provide a pretty straight run from where it's coming from as it won't have to cross the path plus the render's already knackered there!

The trick is to drill your hole at a slight slope downwards towards the outside. It will soften the angle of the cable and also prevent any water coming in that runs down the wall.

I'd never drill inwards at height, I know some people prefer it but its not for me. I'm ever drilling a rendered house it's ALWAYS a new drill bit. I've not blown one yet and do multiple a week.

I also always use a 2 drill bit method. One 12x450 with black electrical tape around the bottom to identify it and then another band of tape on the drill bit to identify 2/3rds of the depth I am drilling (measure at a window).

The black drill bit does all the hammer action to the tape mark. Then swap to the new bit that NEVER sees hammer ever. This will get the best results and is used on all house types, the only thing that might ever change for me is the size of the 2 drills bits (longer). I used to pilot it with an 8mm and open up with the 12 but the results weren't any better.

Good pro tips. I have a brand new 10x450 bit waiting for this job.

I know the drill downwards thing from my extractor hole which obviously wasn't done that way and let's moisture in 🙄

Like I say the render is damaged in that spot anyway so this might motivate me to actually sort it out.

Anyone want to buy a UBIQUITI U6-LR? Got one I'm not using

Would consider... I wasn't in the market now (I'm supposed to be looking at my old hard drives long before coming back) but I have 1 device on my existing AP that suffers from poor 2.4G signal due to some brick walls... was curious to see if the LR version might resolve some of that... so if the price is right I might be in the market.

Edit: Of course I'm now looking at datasheets to see if it would actually make a difference. I have a UAP-AC-PRO today.

Looks like the three differences over what I have are the increase in Tx power from 22 dBm to 26 dBm, and then the additional aerial (4x4 over 3x3), and finally 802.11ax (WiFi 6).

What price are you looking for?

My Unifi network is rock solid in almost every way, except one massive, gaping, annoying problem:

Video calls, on Teams or Google Meet, run on both Linux or Win 11, are a disaster.

They connect fine, are fine for 5 mins or s and then, 90% of the time, crap out - bringing my network down with them.

Symptom is that the outbound AV drops so we have 30 seconds of people telling us they can't see or hear us. Then the whole connection drops and eh entire home network loses internet connectivity until I reboot the UDM or wait a LONG time.

I have no idea what is happening.

The home office, where this is generally experienced, is a LAN connection via 5 port smart Unifi switch to the UDM, over cat 5 cable.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Coming back round on the U6-LR AP... it's not for me.

It's a super nice piece of kit, but in my case with the size of my flat (relatively small) and the problem I'm trying to solve (video doorbell with poor signal)... a boosted AP isn't the solution... in fact it may make things worse in my case.

The doorbell that I have low signal on, that only has 15dBm transmit power. If I boost the AP I can't solve that low signal as the client side isn't capable of going higher. But if I did boost the AP anyway (because long-range is nice) then the small size of my flat means it will just overlap my other AP too much and cause more congestion and the hand-offs get moved.

So I'm going to pass.

Nice bit of kit upon investigation, but not a solution for the problem I have.

Would really suit someone with a larger space.

Symptom is that the outbound AV drops so we have 30 seconds of people telling us they can't see or hear us. Then the whole connection drops and eh entire home network loses internet connectivity until I reboot the UDM or wait a LONG time.

This was what happened on my network and turned out to be packet congestion and packet loss, caused by the Unifi Edge Security Gateway having insufficient cooling. It would seemingly trigger the Gigabit network port to switch from Gigabit to Ethernet, that was what dropped connections, and then it would come back up and restore. Sometimes it came up as Ethernet, sometimes as Gigabit.

Adding cooling to the Edge Security Gateway cured it... it's been rock solid since.

You may want to Google around and see if the UDM suffers overheating too. It seems Ubiquiti consumer gear is sensitive to heat.

I may take it off your hands please.

Latest firmware for both the UDM and the switch?

What other devices are connected to the switch and which model is it?

How long are the CAT5 runs approximately. UDM ——- Switch —— Video Call.