I live in a pretty large house and my PC is on the opposite side from the router. Unfortunately this is basically the only practical place for my setup.
The internet itself is fast. If I test near the router, speeds are great. In my room, normal browsing is usually okay, but gaming is rough. Ping spikes, occasional rubberbanding, random lag, and sometimes the speed drops hard for a few minutes.
The weird part is that the WiFi doesn’t always show as “weak.” Sometimes I still have decent bars, but the connection feels unstable. It also seems worse in the evening, and I can see a bunch of neighboring WiFi networks around the house.
I can’t easily move the router, and running Ethernet across the house would be a pain.
How should I figure out whether this is just distance/walls, crowded channels, or bad router placement? Would a mesh system, extender, channel change, or something like MoCA help more?
Forget about “speed”. Ping, stability, and zero packet loss are crucial for gaming. A speed test might be perfect, but if your Wi-Fi is dropping packets, you’ll be in for a wild ride. Got TV cable in both rooms? Forget Wi-Fi repeaters. Buy MoCA adapters. They’ll turn your TV outlet into a full-fledged wired internet connection. For PCs, they’re an ideal Ethernet replacement: ping is minimal, and the connection never drops.
@GoodAfternoon_sun I do have coax in the house, but I’ve never used it for networking. I thought it was only for cable TV. Normal speed tests in my room are not always terrible, that’s why I wasn’t sure if wiring is overkill. The bad part is mostly ping spikes while gaming.
That’s exactly why MoCA is worth looking at. Gaming doesn’t need 900 Mbps.
Here’s a life hack that 90% of people completely forget about. Everyone usually installs a router and leaves the default settings. As a result, half the house is stuck on the same channel, jamming each other while the neighboring channels are empty. Download any free Wi-Fi analyzer to your smartphone or laptop (I use NetSpot) and see what’s going on around you. If you see any free zones, log into your router’s admin panel (usually 192.168.0.1) and change the channel manually.
@SignalHunter95Thank you. I think this will help.