TP Link Range extender kills the internet in the rest of the network
Hello,
I have a TL-WA850RE v7 wifi extender and when I connect it to my main router (ASUS RT-AC1200), from that moment - if any device tries to register into the network through the main router, it does not have the internet access. The devices accessing the network through the extender work fine.
Initial situation
The main router is running a DHCP server and is responsible for assigning the IP adresses into the home network 192.168.1.X. It is also responsible for the wireless access to the home network througth the SSID called let's say HomeNetwork. There is also one other gateway in the house - the cable modem from the internet provider connected to the main router by the (main router's) WAN socket. The cable modem is running on a different network (192.168.0.x), has the wifi off and is connected to the main router by wire. So the main router has the IP address 192.168.0.10 given by the cable modem on the WAN interface and 192.168.1.1 in the home network. This setup has been running well for years. I just had a very weak signal of the HomeNetwork on the terrace, so wanted to boost it by a range extender.
Range extender installation
I have installed the range extender very easily, set-up a new SSID called HomeNetwork_EXT, left the extender it in the default (range extender) mode and turned the "DHCP Server" option to off (is Auto by default, so just to be sure). The extender connects easily to the main router, it even gets an IP address 192.168.1.200 from the main router (I guess just because of the config interface, otherwise the extender does not need the IP address). I connected the mobile phone from the terrace through the HomeNetwork_EXT and it worked well. I have turned on my laptop a couple of hours later inside the house, it tried to connect to the HomeNetwork, but it said "no internet". I have checked, but the phone connected to the HomeNetwork_EXT had the internet connection. The internet was working. This is where the problems started. I started testing the behaviour in different situations to pinpoint the cause.
Tests
Test 1 - HomeNetwork_EXT always works
If I connect a new device to the network through HomeNetwork_EXT, the connected device works well - it can connect to the internet, sees the devices in the network etc. All good.
Test 2 - Turning off the extender immediately solves the problem
If I turn on my laptop and try to connect it to the HomeNetwork while the extender is on, the laptop says "no internet". The command ipconfig shows the laptop has the IP address assigned by the main router, but I cannot ping the main router (weirdly - like one out of 10 packages pings correctly, the others are lost immediately to "general error". not even a timeout). If I turn off the extender, the problem immediately disappears and the connection through HomeNetwork works perfectly again. ==> so I thought "hmm, it is somehow jamming HomeNetwork".
Test 3 - Wired devices connected to main router have the same issue
To confirm, I have tested this also with the wired devices. The extender is on. If the Smart TV had been turned on before the extender was turned on, it works well. However, if I make it get the new IP address from the main routers' DHCP server, it gets the new IP address, says all is fine, but Youtube/Netflix does not work because it just has no internet connection. If I turn the extender off, again, magically, the internet on the Smart TV starts working.
I have checked the logs in the main router, but there is no error logged, as if all was perfect.
I am running out of ideas what the cause could be. Anyone any thought?
Thank you very much
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I had exactly the same problem as described, using three of these WA850RE devices, connectivity to the main router wi-fi (a Huawei Wi-fi 6 router provided by the local ISP Zeop) became extremely flaky.
I took these steps, to try and improve things. All I can say, is that things improved slightly, but not to the extent that I'd say it's satisfactory:
1) Upgraded the firmware on all three devices to 10.0.13
2) Set all three devices to use a static IP address, and disabled DHCP on all of them.
After doing this, for a few minutes, I thought it was fixed, as I could connect to the main router's wi-fi, and each of the wi-fi extenders. However it wasn't long before the connection dropped, and I started getting that problem where it prompts for the wi-fi password, even though the password has already been correctly entered on my laptop/phone.
I should mention that there is also a Netgear PLW1000/CPL1000 Powerline kit which runs perfectly fine on the same network. I'm now thinking of ditching the TP-Link extenders and going with another Netgear Powerline device!
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@buxter can you suggest which repeater you bought ? I am facing same problem as you.
I was thinking of getting one mesh supporting devices of TP-Link
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BIUS
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@jesperk2 It DOES work, thanks!!!
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I'm glad it's not just me, this thing absolutely kills the entire network when it is plugged in.
I've had it a while & occasionally I try to get it going with the same result, I guess I'll just throw it away, stop wasting my time on it & get something else.
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I had this same issue. And I was able to fix it temporarily multiple time by turning off/on DHCP, assigning fixed IP. But nothing was permanent. At the time of writing this post I was able to fix it by assigning fix ip like following
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@jesperk2 Hey, it's been a while since your post but i'm experiencing the same issue now.
You said you fixed your RE ipv4 to ... .2, what did you put as the primary DNS right underneath?
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Yes it's been a while :-)
I am moving to an apartment and don't need the range extender for extending ange anymore. But it works fine as an ethernet adapter, so I will use it to connect my printer that only has ethetnet to the wifi in the flat. Tested it, and it works.
To your question: I am not quite sure what you mean. I can't find a DNS setting in te RE-settings (did not expect to find it), and I don't thing the DNS settings on the PC or whatecer you use to adn\minister the RE has anything to do with the RE.
Best regards
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