@Tirwin 

 

I may be able to give you recommendations based on my previous personal and professional experience. Some of them will be of general nature, some applicable to any WiFi mesh system, and some specific to Deco.

I also see some potential issues with your setup, especially if your expectation is low latency and consistent ping. I might be able to give my recommendations on that, too. 

 

But, first, I'll need you to provide more information. You gave quite detailed description, thanks for that, but few items are missing from it. Here is what I'd like to learn from you:

 

Is your house bungalow or multiple floors?

Is house wired with TV cables, and if yes - does it have TV cable that starts at the promiximity of your modem in front of your house and terminates in living room at the back of the house?

 

What is speed of your Internet connection?

What is brand and model of your ISP modem? 

How many Ethernet ports are on modem and how many of them are available?

Do you run that ISP modem as just modem (a.k.a. "bridge mode") or as router?

 

 

Your desktop, "windows 10 with a wireless adapter -> NETGEAR WNA1100 N150" - it is your gaming desktop, correct? Just it, no other gaming computers or consoles to consider?

Does you desktop have USB3 ports, or just USB2?

If possible, please tell CPU type and amount of RAM on that desktop.

Does your desktop have Ethernet port? If it does - is it gigabit or 100Mbps?

Does your desktop have free expansion slots and are you comfortable adding networking or other cards to your desktop (or have someone who can do that for you preferably for free and with understanding of what they are doing)?

 

What did you use to connect to the Internet from your desktop before you decided to buy Velop and Deco mesh?

What is the reason you decided to buy WiFi mesh instead of, say, WiFi range extender to boost WiFi signal of whatever WiFi router you had before?

If I have found correct "NETGEAR WNA1100 N150" hardware specs, this WiFi adapter only supports WiFi 2.4GHz and does not support WiFi 5GHz. If this is true, why did you buy X20 which supports WiFi 2.4GHz, 5GHz and WiFi 6? Seems to me an overkill for a type of WiFi adapter you use.

 

You described your house layout and where X20 nodes are, but you didn't tell where your desktop is located in the house. 

If your desktop is not in the same room as one of X20 nodes, can you move X20 node to the same room where desktop is?

Do you have TV cable in the same room your gaming desktop is?

@Alexandre. 

 

Hey,

Thanks for the detailed reply first of all.

 

To answer some of ur questions;

 

I live in a house with multiple floors (3 to be correct), but all nodes are on bottom floor right now. I bought the Deco X20 because it has large coverage. Which was an issue with the velop system. The house i'm living seems to be pretty big to get coverage all over the place. 

 

Do I have a wired TV cable? I don't know to be honest. Its is not a modern new house and I didn't build it myself.
My TV decoder has to be wired connected to netwerk to my ISP else it won't work properly.. thats why i'm using the PLC for it.

 

I have a basic internet connection of just 100 MB. I know this is minimum package but it works fine untill now. 

I have to say my gaming experience was fine with the linksys velop system (besides the nodes randomly disconnected). But no lags/timed outs like with the Deco X20.

Brand of my ISP: Proximus and the my modem model is BBOX3.

My modem is now in router mode and it has 4 LAN  ethernet ports, i'm only using one right now for the PLC.

 

I've been thinking aswell it might be the netgear adapter causing the problem. (plugged in USB 3.0 port) I am willing to change the adapter tho, but I have to be 100% certain it will solve all issues with it.

I have one gaming desktop yes, I got a PS4 aswell but I barely play on it. I assume you want me to test and see if there's lag online aswell on the PS4?

My computer now has these specs; 16 GB RAM - i5 - 8400 cpu 2.8ghz. It does have an ethernet port but unable to connect it by wire.. no patch ports.

The computer itself is in my living room which is about 7 metres away from the parent node. 

 

right now, I cannot tell if my devices are supporting wifi 6 tbh... i've read iphone 11 should ... but no idea how I can tell if it using wifi 6 or 5ghz. 

 

 

Best regards

Brian

@TP-Link 

 

Hi I tried ur suggestion, but that doesn't help sadly. No changes to pings/lag. Best regards Brian

@Tirwin 

 

As promised, recommendations for gaming, mesh and Deco mesh.

 

Gaming

 

In your setup, I don't like three things: PLC, USB WiFi adapter and mesh.These all three can contribute to latency and ping loss and are bad for gaming. 

 

A) Powerline adapters are a terrible thing: they are very sensitive to anything plugged to electric wiring. That is the reason I asked if you have TV cable outlets near modem and in living room. If you can find them, consider Ethernet over TV cable. Google for MoCA - that is the standard for that data transmission and it is way better than PCL (purchase of MoCA adapters will be required).

 

B) WiFi mesh is never nice to gaming. Comes with technology. Some mesh systems are better than other, so I don't discourage you from keeping trying. TP-Link suggested to turn off "Mesh" setting for desktop specifically, even if it does not help much - keep it off for dfesktop. Of course, only after you verified that desktop is connected to Main (Parent) Node.

 

C) USB WiFi adapter - don't get me started. You really should have had network card in your desktop for smooth gaming. Yet, if it is what you have, it is what you have.

Now, in regard to testing your home network quality. Don't just ping 8.8.8.8 - that will test overall connectivity to the Internet, but won't tell you where the problems are with latency and ping spikes.
You should also, from desktop, ping IP address of Parent node and of ISP modem. The Parent node ping will tell you how your USB WiFi adapter performs, the ping to modem - how bad your powerline connectivity is.

 

Because desktop and Parent node are in the same room, get Ethernet cable and connect them both. Then, run ping to Parent node (should give you an excellent result, but verify that) and to modem (now should only report issues with powerline).

 

With these tests, you'll see if it makes sense to replace USB WiFi adapter you have with something else. Ideally, you should just keep desktop connected by Ethernet cable to Parent node, that would be the best for it. 

Note, all this is applicable to any mesh, follow these recommendations even if you decide not to stay with Deco.

Choosing WiFi mesh

 

With your Internet speed you really don't need to spend money on mesh that supports WiFi6. If you like X20 and eventually decide to keep them, its fine, but if not - look for next mesh that does not support WiFi6.
You'll save a lot of money - WiFi6 mesh is overpriced if you ask me. 

 

Also, look for triband mesh. It may be called "tri band" or "tri-band." This is important if at least one of mesh nodes wirelessly connects to the Parent (Main) node. Triband dramatically improves connectivity between mesh nodes.

 

Taking Deco as an example, they have M9Plus which is triband but does not support WiFi6. M9 is priced similarly to X20. If I were there when you considered what Deco to buy, I would have suggested you to start with Deco M9Plus instead of X20.

 

Tuning Deco mesh

 

With Deco mesh, you can try the following things:

 

A) Keep "mesh" setting turned off for desktop, in Deco app. Make sure desktop is connected to Parent node. As I said before, the best is to just connect them both by Ethernet cable.
B) Switch Deco to run in Access Point mode. This setting is under Advanced in Deco app, screenshot will be below at the bottom of that post;
C) After Deco runs is Access Point mode, take Satellite X20 that is not far from your ISP modem, bring it closer to modem and connect to modem by Ethernet cable. While that is not expected to improve your gaming experience, it should improve overall Internet experience for every device that is connected by WiFi to that Satellite X20.

 

These changes might not improve much, I believe the root cause is powerline and USB adapter, but it is good housekeeping.

If you will have more questions, after trying these recommendations, feel free to ask.

 

@Alexandre. 

 

Hi

 

Thanks for the detailed post again.

It helps me understand a couple of things.

 

I did try the ping tests;

 

First, all wireless; 

Pretty jumpy at times as expected and noticed before.

 

PC wired to parent node;

much more stable ofcourse

 

 

PC Wired and few gaming to see;

NO LAG whatsoever and pings stay stable... 

 

 

 

So, is my conclusion right to say that it must be the USB adapter here that is causing the problem?

I know this adapter itself is pretty old.. (must be nearly 10 years old I think).

I really don't mind to buy a network card to solve it. But I don't really understand why this old USB adapter is giving me issues with DECO (I had no issues with it with VELOP).

Is it some protocol deco uses vs velop ? And why would it work properly with an network card instead?

 

Sadly, i'm living in an old house with like no ethernet cables avaible. We might be changing that at the end of this year tho.

As for that, am I right to say best option would be parent node in the middle of my house wired to modem and the other child nodes wired to parent node? Or is it similar to have all 3 wired to modem. 

 

could you explain me the access point mode ? It's like "bridge mode" ?  aka i'm basically jus copying every setting from my ISP ? 

What would it improve compared to what it is now? 

All I know is that I will have less posibilities to adjust things.. (including 'parent mode'... which is really useful)

 

So, so far I've only tested wired and wireless pings. Did not make changes to settings yet (access point mode)

For now, I just want stable internet and have normal gaming/streaming experience.

 

 

Another option would be the other way around.

Place my parent node near my modem in front of my house

1 child in kitchen and 1 child in the living room near my PC (so my PC is WIRED)

 

The setup above caused problems with the linksys velop system. Not enough coverage somehow and my node near my PC kept disconnecting. 

Would it be good to try that? And turn "mesh" option back on the PC? 

 

 

Best regards

Brian

@Tirwin 

 

Deco Access Point mode removes all network management from Deco. Deco provides WiFi signal, ISP router manages network. In Access Point mode you'll lose Deco features such as parental controls. If you use them, Access Point mode is not for you, leave Deco in Router mode.

Access Point can be used for troubleshooting: as it removes all features such as content filtering, that helps to figure if perhaps Deco was misconfigured in Router mode. Also, in Access Point mode you can wire Deco units any way you want, there are restrictions in Router mode.

 

My suggestion to switch to Access Point mode was to make sure there is no Deco misconfiguration and that Deco does not impact networking traffic in any way.

I run my Deco mesh in Access Point mode, for example. I have otherwise good router, but its WiFi signal is not enough for my house.

 

-----------------

 

If you can keep desktop wired to Deco, that is the best option. Wired is always better than wireless. Networking card is supposed to improve WiFi connections, comparing to USB adapter, but it will never be as good as Ethernet cable.

To keep that post shorter, I'll point you to the article comparing WiFi network cards to USB WiFi adapters: https://www.technize.com/blog/pci-e-wifi-card-vs-usb-wifi-adapter/

Yet, even if putting Ethernet cable in the room looks ugly, there are sacrifices to make for better gaming experience. Having Ethernet cable is one of them.

 

----------------

 

>Another option would be the other way around. Place my parent node near my modem in front of my house, 1 child in kitchen and 1 child in the living room near my PC (so my PC is WIRED). The setup above caused problems with the linksys velop system. 

 

Can't guarantee it'll be better than what you now have with PLC, but it might - so worth testing.

 

-----------------

 

>And turn "mesh" option back on the PC? 

 

Mesh option only used to tell PC look for another Deco nodes with better signal and offers suggestions which to connect to. Because PC is stationary, after it connected to Deco you want it to, disabling mesh for PC will stop PC from trying to reconnect elsewhere. Attempts to reconnect to different mesh node is where latency and packet loss could happen briefly. 

Meaning: for PC keep it off, for mobile device such as smartphone or tablet leave it on.

 

-----------------

 

>As for that, am I right to say best option would be parent node in the middle of my house wired to modem and the other child nodes wired to parent node? Or is it similar to have all 3 wired to modem. 

 

The wired will always beat wireless, so make them wired if you can. Note that "all three wired to modem Ethernet ports" can only work in Access Point mode.  See General questions about Ethernet Backhaul feature on your Deco.

 

@Alexandre. 

 

I tried the other setup yesterday to have my desktop wired to my 2nd child node. 

From there on, everything is working smooth and i'm having like 70 mbit on it right now.

As stated before, this setup was causing a lot of issues with the velop system due coverage ... So far DECO performs better on it. 

I hope it stays like that tho.

 

Atleast I can enjoy the deco system now without drops.

In the future we will be having ethernet cables placed...

 

I still don't get why the USB adapter caused issues tho.

As for now, the problems seem to be solved.

 

Thanks for the all the info you gave me, and it will surely help in the future when i'm having issues...

 

 

Best regards

Brian