Lag and WiFi extender?

[Danno1016]

I own the Netduma R2 router but I have to have it in my living room. I use it for my PC and my PS4 but I still get lag. Is there anyway I could get rid of the lag or use a wifi extender and LAN cable everything?

[Anilman92]

There is always a lag on wifi there is no way to fix it

except wifi 6 maybe.

[Newfie]

You would need to test with a nice long cable if WiFi is creating an issue then look at how to improve it.

if you use an extender and cable into that but the extender connects to router via WiFi that may well not solve your issue.

There are starting points to help improve WiFi.

place router in an area central and away from other electrical equipment and not in a cabinet or behind a sofa.

Check using a WiFi Analyzer to see what neighbouring channels are in your area and adjust the R2. Don’t forget 2.4 tends to be a busy little area and less throughput than 5Ghz. 5Ghz does not have the range of 2.4Ghz but has a better throughput. The greater the distance from the router the less throughput.

on a mobile device go to the App Store and download WiFi Sweetspots. This shows your internal connection rate from your device to the router and makes life easier to spot dead spots or where the WiFi is dropping off. 
 

Im not a fan of using power lines, it’s like turning your property into one big WiFi signal and the quality of service depends on lots of variables. Normal extender will cut your throughput down, some like a few of the Netgear extenders use a backhaul channel to keep throughput up but that relies on using a DFS channel which the R2 can’t do at the moment.

ideally with the R2 you need to be fairly close to make best use of its WiFi. 
 

Wifi 6 or AX on some tests has shown an increase in latency which the one tester noted and also mentioned may be improved with firmware. I’ve happily gamed on WiFi with the XR500 and my AX router without feeling that the WiFi was creating an issue however I make sure it’s as clean as possible with the checks above. Cable is hassle free on the other hand apart from needing to wire everything up that you feels needs too. 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

Are you certain as to whether it is lag caused by WiFi or not? Could you take the PS4 into the living room and connect it wired to the R2 for example and see whether you have the same lag?