Help with strange home network problem.
Discussion
Evening guys and girls
For the last 15 years we've had normal broadband in our house, with the phone line coming in at the back of the house (our house is a terraced house with the house being an L shape, the back being the tip of the top of the L), runs through the attic, through a conduit down through the bedroom wall then into the cupboard under the stairs which is pretty much the middle of the house and hasn't got an outside wall. Over the last 15 years as I've renovated the house I ran cat5 cables from various points to under the stairs and to a network switch. The old broadband then plugged in to 1 of 2 ports on a mesh network node, with the other port then connecting to the network switch.
A month or so ago we had fibre installed, and we were told by the salesman (I know I know never trust a salesman on technical matters!) that they could run the fibre down through the same route as the original phone line. When the fitters arrived we were told it had to terminate in a box at waist height at the back of the house, and that the line that came off that was only a couple of meters long. Thats now resulted in the fibre modem being on the wall in the utility room. It also came with a EERO wifi router that I don't really need but it does seem to get the best speeds that the EERO router signs in to manage the connection. That may not be correct, but from trial and error thats what seems to work best. The EERO connects to the fibre modem with a short network cable. Temporarily I then had to add another short network cable from the EERO to a spare node that matches the rest of my mesh system. That though meant that the internet had to bounce back and fore wirelessly to the main mesh node and by the time it went to another node at the front of the house the internet was slower than the original broadband which struggled getting past 15Mbs. To solve this I ran some external rated CAT6 from the utility room, up the side of the house, then followed the route of the original phone line though the attic then down the conduit to under the stairs. That did mean I had to cut the plugs off each end of the 25m cables I bought so crimped new ends on. I had a few problems getting the rj45 plugs I had to join properly on the cable, but after buying some better ones as well as a cable tester I was happy that the cable was fine. Now for the strange bit. If I plug the long cable in to the 2nd port of the EERO then in to my mesh node under the stairs I get full speeds and a reliable connection. To try and free up the counter and a socket in the utility room I then tried putting the EERO router under the stairs with the long cable being the link between the fibre modem and the EERO. The EERO would then not connect to the fibre modem at all. It's almost as if the fibre modem hasn't got a strong enough signal to go that distance. Is that a thing? I suspect I'll just have to live with it and just add an extra couple of sockets in the utility room to run the modem and EERO router, but it just stumped me how it wouldn't connect.
Apologies if some of this doesn't make sense. I'm sat in the car writing on my phone waiting for my sons football training to finish. I'll draw a diagram when I get back to the house in an hour or so.
For the last 15 years we've had normal broadband in our house, with the phone line coming in at the back of the house (our house is a terraced house with the house being an L shape, the back being the tip of the top of the L), runs through the attic, through a conduit down through the bedroom wall then into the cupboard under the stairs which is pretty much the middle of the house and hasn't got an outside wall. Over the last 15 years as I've renovated the house I ran cat5 cables from various points to under the stairs and to a network switch. The old broadband then plugged in to 1 of 2 ports on a mesh network node, with the other port then connecting to the network switch.
A month or so ago we had fibre installed, and we were told by the salesman (I know I know never trust a salesman on technical matters!) that they could run the fibre down through the same route as the original phone line. When the fitters arrived we were told it had to terminate in a box at waist height at the back of the house, and that the line that came off that was only a couple of meters long. Thats now resulted in the fibre modem being on the wall in the utility room. It also came with a EERO wifi router that I don't really need but it does seem to get the best speeds that the EERO router signs in to manage the connection. That may not be correct, but from trial and error thats what seems to work best. The EERO connects to the fibre modem with a short network cable. Temporarily I then had to add another short network cable from the EERO to a spare node that matches the rest of my mesh system. That though meant that the internet had to bounce back and fore wirelessly to the main mesh node and by the time it went to another node at the front of the house the internet was slower than the original broadband which struggled getting past 15Mbs. To solve this I ran some external rated CAT6 from the utility room, up the side of the house, then followed the route of the original phone line though the attic then down the conduit to under the stairs. That did mean I had to cut the plugs off each end of the 25m cables I bought so crimped new ends on. I had a few problems getting the rj45 plugs I had to join properly on the cable, but after buying some better ones as well as a cable tester I was happy that the cable was fine. Now for the strange bit. If I plug the long cable in to the 2nd port of the EERO then in to my mesh node under the stairs I get full speeds and a reliable connection. To try and free up the counter and a socket in the utility room I then tried putting the EERO router under the stairs with the long cable being the link between the fibre modem and the EERO. The EERO would then not connect to the fibre modem at all. It's almost as if the fibre modem hasn't got a strong enough signal to go that distance. Is that a thing? I suspect I'll just have to live with it and just add an extra couple of sockets in the utility room to run the modem and EERO router, but it just stumped me how it wouldn't connect.
Apologies if some of this doesn't make sense. I'm sat in the car writing on my phone waiting for my sons football training to finish. I'll draw a diagram when I get back to the house in an hour or so.
Needs a simpler, less ramble explanation 
You have an eero which set as the router, then a bunch of other mesh wifi nodes?
Are the other mesh nodes in bridge mode? Are you sometimes getting double natted?
Are there now two devices giving out ip addresses on the network?
Does the eero definitively know which port the wan is on, or is it guessing?
You have an eero which set as the router, then a bunch of other mesh wifi nodes?
Are the other mesh nodes in bridge mode? Are you sometimes getting double natted?
Are there now two devices giving out ip addresses on the network?
Does the eero definitively know which port the wan is on, or is it guessing?
In complete honesty, I think the crimped ends on your long cable are unlikely to be of the highest quality. Beg, borrow or steal another pre-made long cable (I've a 100m cable I keep for this sort of thing) and use that to connect the two devices and see what results you get.
Also, I think in one of the scenarios you've described, there's at least 2 devices trying to be your router or give out IP addresses.
Also, I think in one of the scenarios you've described, there's at least 2 devices trying to be your router or give out IP addresses.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff