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Help me fix my dad’s home internet setup. Does my plan make sense? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago by QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I’m living with my dad for the summer and his internet setup makes no sense. I’m a simple man who uses Ethernet when possible and I’ve never had coverage issues because I’m a poor who lives in apartments. So this mesh network stuff is new to me. He has a 3000sqft house and clearly had coverage issues

His setup: 14 year old Nighthawk router/modem being used as a modem Orbi 50 router with no satellites Eero 6 as a second router …no satellites.

My plan: Buy a proper modem Use the Orbi for the router Turn the Eero into an access point and plug it in upstairs via Ethernet. Buy used Orbi satellites for rest of house

My other option is to sell it all, buy a TP Link AXE5400 router, a modem and a couple mesh satellites so that I can start fresh.

What should I do? We don’t need WiFi 7. We don’t even need blazing fast WiFi speeds. Decent speeds, good coverage and simplicity are priority.

Thanks

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[-] CameronDev@programming.dev 12 points 4 days ago

Is the modem causing issues? If it can handle the line speed of the internet connection I wouldn't waste money replacing it.

I would stick to one system, orbi or eero, not both.

[-] QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I’m honestly not sure. I think it might be. When I play games, my ping is high. I’m not sure if you play anything but battlefield 1 was around 100, even though I think that’s an issue with the lobbies. Arc Raiders is giving me regular network/performance issue icons. I’m getting a ping and packet loss notification multiple times per game.

I’m on xfinity in Massachusetts so it supposed to be one of the top performance providers in the country.

And yeah, I’ll likely ditch the Eero and buy Orbi satellites if I don’t get rid of it all and start with a new system.

[-] Enoril@jlai.lu 5 points 4 days ago

Test your real ping from the modem and from a wired connection directly (no wifi).

That will give you a good reference of what to expect in term of latency and bandwidth. Do the test multiple time at different moment of the day. The best results are usually during the night, after midnight. If you have optic fiber, the difference should not be so big.

If the ping is bad from this point, no materials in the home would fix that unfortunately.

For gaming, it's better to rely on wired connection than wifi. Even more if the wifi is bouncing from wifi relay to the modem.

[-] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

WiFi might be the main cause of the ping issues. I would test on Ethernet to rule it out.

this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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