Bit of a rant, sorry. Had my router swapped last week because the old one kept rebooting. The new box is honestly worse in the bedroom upstairs. Downstairs near the TV it's fine, but upstairs video calls freeze and my son's gaming keeps kicking him out.
House is a standard 3-bed semi, router is in the hall by the front door because that's where the engineer put it years ago. I've tried turning it off and on again, moving the router a little, changing the Wi-Fi name, all the usual stuff. I don't really want to pay extra for anything if I can help it.
Any actual tips for dead zones? Or is this just what broadband is like now?
Hi KerryM, sorry to hear the swap hasn't improved things. A hall cupboard or front hall can be a tricky spot for Wi-Fi if the signal has to travel through floors and walls.
A couple of quick checks:
- Is the router standing upright in the open, not tucked behind furniture?
- Are there any devices like smart hubs or baby monitors near it?
- Do you know if the router has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands available?
If you can, try connecting the upstairs devices to the 2.4GHz band first, as it usually reaches further. If you want, I can also talk you through a few placement changes that don't cost anything.
Not staff, just another customer - had the same in my place. Moving the router even 2 metres helped more than I expected. I thought it was nonsense at first. If it's by the front door, try a shelf in the hall instead of floor level. Also worth checking if your bedroom walls have foil-backed insulation, that absolutely murdered my signal.
Thanks both. It's on the floor beside the console thing, so maybe that isn't helping. I don't know about the bands - I just see one Wi-Fi name on my phone. Do I need to split it or something? I'm not great with tech if I'm honest.
You don't need to do anything drastic. If your router is on the floor, lifting it onto a shelf or table can make a noticeable difference straight away.
On the Wi-Fi name: if you only see one network name, your router may be using one combined name for both bands. That's fine. We can still try the following in order:
1. Move the router up off the floor and away from the TV/console.
2. Keep it in open air, not behind metal or inside a cupboard.
3. Test upstairs again after a full minute.
4. If the router has a 'Wi-Fi optimisation' or 'smart steering' setting, leave it on for now.
If it's still poor, the next step would be a Wi-Fi pod or extender if your package supports it, but I won't push that unless it's needed. If you'd like, reply with your router model and I can give more specific steps.
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