So, I don’t think I had this problem before I started adding more devices to the network.
I have an ISP-provided router, which is a Huawei router. When I started getting into smart home stuff, I bought what I though was the best router, Asus AXE-16000 in order to expand the network. I’m not a network technician by any means, I just saw some youtube reviews and a lot of people recommended it.
I configured the Asus router as an access point and the Huawei router as my DHCP server and gateway. When I noticed a few devices kept disconnecting, I assigned the most important ones static IP addresses.
Devices still keep disconnecting: Samsung TVs, Orange PI computer, Tuya devices. I don’t think I’ve got a device that didn’t disconnect. The more devices I add, the more this happens.
Currently, I have 30 devices or less on the network, which, from my searches, isn’t a lot. I mean, the router should be handling this fairly easily. I don’t know what’s going on.
I should add that I have a 3rd router connected to the Huawei, a TP-link. This TP-link is not configured as an access point. It has its own set of addresses and DHCP server. It connects to the internet through the ISP-provided Huawei.
The three routers are within 5 meters of each other and use separate 2.4 ghz channels which are 1, 7 and 13.
Any ideas??
Will disabling wifi on all routers but the Asus solve this?
In theory the WiFi could very well run like this. So that is probably not the issue. My thirst question is is the TPlink router connected to the Huawei from its wan port? If not then the problem is 2 DHCP servers on the same network.
Question number two is why are you not using the Asus as DHCP server?
And if I understand correctly you have 3 seperate WiFi channels in use and two seperate subnets? Are devices dropping from every network and every subnet?
Spread evenly across 3 wifi access points that should be ok. Max of about 30 per access point.
Try 1, 6, 11. That may play better with your neighbours wifi if they use the “auto” scheme. Also try spreading the routers out across your house for better coverage.
The whole setup sounds incredibly complicated. If you have the funds simplifying by using one router, one or more managed network switches and dedicated wifi access points.
e.g. My set up:
Edgerouter-x (amazing for the price if you have less than 1GB WAN), configured for DHCP, NTP and failover/back from fibre to cellular WAN connections.
UniFi USW-48-POE, 48 port managed PoE switch
3x AC-lite and 1x UAP-Outdoor wifi access points.
At one point I had over 150 clients. No issues art all. A lot of that has been moved to zigbee and I have less than 90 clients now.
I don’t understand the first question but I’ll try to give more information about the relationship between the TP-link and the Huawei. The TP-link is connected to the ISP-provided Huawei by ethernet cable. It has it’s own subnet and DHCP server. The configuration options are to set it as either a gateway or a repeater, and I chose the former. The only devices that I want to remain connected to them are the devices in my room, which are PC, TV, Android TV, NAS… etc. Everything works fine here as fine as I can tell. I don’t think there are even disconnections here.
As for your second question, I’m not using Asus as a DHCP server because, when the disconnections started, I wanted to assign static IPs to some devices. At that time, my Home Assistant server was on the same subnet as the TP-link devices. This has changed since. But at that time, I couldn’t get Home Assistant to recognize the devices on the other subnet (this is still a problem with some devices that I plan to solve by flashing OpenWrt soon), so after much trying, the easiest way to get Home Assistant to recognize devices connected to all three routers was to configure the Asus as AP instead of DHCP.
As for the third question, yes, I have 3 separate WiFi channels and two separate subnets.
As for the forth question, I never noticed devices dropping from the TP-Links’ 5ghz channels, but I think some did when they used the 2.4ghz, but I think this didn’t happen in a long time, maybe because I moved most of them to the Asus.
I haven’t paid much attention to what happened to devices on the Huawei, but the devices connected to the Asus would drop out many times a day. Some of them would drop out every minute and reconnect, some would drop out for extended periods of time and would only reconnect after I power them off and on again.
Just to point a few things out, the Asus has 16 devices connected to it. The TP-Link has about 4 or 5 and the rest are on the Huawei.
As for my own modem, do you mean connected directly to their line? No, I don’t think they allow that. I have to connect whatever modem/router I want to theirs.
I agree with Tom about it being complicated. I think you could benefit by reading up on network essentials about subnets. Because (if understand correctly) you are trying something what is not meant to work like that.
To be honest I would try and simplify things. For instance remove the TPLink router, disable the WiFi on the Huawei. The Asus should easily handle the devices as long as their in range.
If you have problems with coverage of the WiFi network I would recommend extending the WiFi with the Asus Rog Rapture GT6 because that way you can just have 1 WiFi network with roaming devices.
As for a home network I really see no reason to have 3 routers.
The Asus AXE-16000 might be the most potent of them all. Hence I would configure it as the router behind the ISP modem and disconnect the other 2 routers from your LAN. According to its specs the AXE can do all what you are trying to accomplish (considering that all of the three routers are within 5 meters of each other anyway).
The above should be more than sufficient for a small home network. No additional routers needed.
Referring to the above picture “Router” and “Wireless access point” will be one device only (your Asus router).
Switch OFF the WiFi of the Huawei modem and connect the Asus WAN port to one of the LAN ports of the Huawei modem.
Now just configure your Asus to connect to the internet using the Huawei modem as the internet gateway.
If you get this successfully done I (or somebody else here) will guide you through the optimization to get the max. bandwith out of your network.
