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How to speed up a slow Wi-Fi signal

Having trouble with your home’s Wi-Fi connection? You might be able to fix it with a little futzing — here’s where to start. Best routers overall: Best mesh routers: Best range extenders: Best gaming routers: 0:00 Intro 0:30 Router Reset 1:00 Device Speed Check 1:35 Network Tweaks 3:17 Hardware Upgrades 3:57 Outro Subscribe to CNET:…

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Having trouble with your home’s Wi-Fi connection? You might be able to fix it with a little futzing — here’s where to start.

Best routers overall:
Best mesh routers:
Best range extenders:
Best gaming routers:

0:00 Intro
0:30 Router Reset
1:00 Device Speed Check
1:35 Network Tweaks
3:17 Hardware Upgrades
3:57 Outro

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42 Comments

42 Comments

  1. YT ENTERTAINMENT

    February 2, 2022 at 5:02 pm

    First

  2. SENSEI No Commentary

    February 2, 2022 at 5:02 pm

    Never thought you could do this. Interesting ????

  3. Platinumkali

    February 2, 2022 at 5:04 pm

    What is the best router to use?

    • Mr G

      February 2, 2022 at 6:51 pm

      ASUS

  4. Last Son of Abraham

    February 2, 2022 at 5:04 pm

    Thanks

  5. kushal shingote (iOS Software Engineer????)

    February 2, 2022 at 5:05 pm

    Awesome video ???????? Nice content ????

  6. CrucialConflict

    February 2, 2022 at 5:27 pm

    Eero is the way to go, uninterrupted wifi signal throughout the entire house.

    • Ax El

      February 2, 2022 at 7:36 pm

      Unless you live in an apartment that lacks space or power outlets to accommodate for it

  7. Don't Be Stupid

    February 2, 2022 at 5:30 pm

    Nice advertisement.

  8. Ed F

    February 2, 2022 at 5:31 pm

    Never heard about changing the channel. Out of frustration I ended up buying a new router. I used to have a TP Link and it just did not cut it. I ended up buying a Netgear X8 and haven’t had any issues since.

  9. Jeff j

    February 2, 2022 at 5:40 pm

    Cool but you a home router what about one you have from you cable company

  10. Saffy

    February 2, 2022 at 5:51 pm

    1:00 Maybe because you’ve loaded 10 ads !

  11. Jim Jam

    February 2, 2022 at 5:54 pm

    wife

  12. Alfonso Rivera-Moctezuma Jr

    February 2, 2022 at 6:35 pm

    Video has a Wreck-it-Ralph tone with that background music and Fix-it-felix is explaining to us of improving our wi-fi network signal. Thanks for the recommendations, Ry. Nice work.

  13. Bradley Anderson

    February 2, 2022 at 6:37 pm

    So I recently upgraded to the ASUS Zenwifi ET8 and added a ASUS Zenwifi AC as a node purely to be used as an extended so I could plug my pc into it via Ethernet since my usb Wi-Fi adapter speeds seemed lack luster. My problem now is the smart connect rules used by ASUS to determine the best speed sometimes decide 2.4 ghz band is the best connection when it’s clearly not. When it’s connected to the 5 ghz band it shows a great connection between the nodes with 3 bars and I never move these nodes. Then when it changes to 2.4 ghz it shows a weak connection with only 1 bar and I have to reboot either the node or the entire network or run their optimization to get it to figure out it’s mistake. Have you had any experience with these issues with ASUS smart connect? Any recommendations? Currently I can’t find a way to force the nodes to always use 5 ghz unless I split up the SSID’s which is a pain since I have over 50 connected devices in my house

    • Thomas McCosker

      February 2, 2022 at 8:58 pm

      Turn off smart connect and separate the 2.4 and 5ghz bands. Turn off agile multiband unless you live in an apartment complex.

    • Bradley Anderson

      February 2, 2022 at 10:11 pm

      @Thomas McCosker I was hoping for a solution that didn’t turn off smart connect. With 50+ devices I really don’t want to go around updating the Wi-Fi on all of them. Also when I did try this in the past moving around the house with my phone or laptop sometimes got tricky if I got out of range of the 5 ghz band

  14. A

    February 2, 2022 at 6:54 pm

    Cool, but instead of a home router, how about a cable company router?

    • Romeo V

      February 2, 2022 at 11:35 pm

      Depends on which one you have. The concept is the same, if it has built wifi, you can tweak its settings by looking up how to access your devices settings. Sometimes the IP address with the login credentials are written on the bottom of the device.

  15. J Lugo

    February 2, 2022 at 7:01 pm

    What has helped me is measuring rssi to find the best location for my router.

  16. Westlake

    February 2, 2022 at 7:21 pm

    Careful when upgrading to a Mesh if you have any Sonos devices. The two don’t play nice.
    Also, our cable TV kept dropping the connection as well.
    Went back to an extender for the backyard. 🙁

    • Daniel Beard

      February 2, 2022 at 7:27 pm

      For Sonos I found that having one hardwired to your router helps, but I still have to reset my other Sonos to get back on the network. Fun times.

    • John B

      February 6, 2022 at 9:43 pm

      I have no issues with Sonos or any streaming with my mesh network.

  17. Matt

    February 2, 2022 at 8:01 pm

    Don’t forget to change the WiFi fluid and rotate the antennas every few months.

  18. Nicholas

    February 2, 2022 at 8:07 pm

    That pretty much covers of it for wifi routers. Anything else would be more brand/model specific.

  19. Veganchicken

    February 2, 2022 at 8:49 pm

    no dont call your service provider before not testing ethernet connection first

  20. Nouman Khan

    February 2, 2022 at 10:24 pm

    I have 500/500 fiber and get advertised speeds and low latency on speed tests. But every time I tried GeForce Now, the latency was garbage, even though I was connecting to servers in my city (or close). Then I trialed Stadia and Xbox cloud streaming and it was exactly the same.
    That led me to discover the problem was the gateway’s (ISP’s modem router combo) chipset and it was apparently notorious for packet loss with streaming gaming services. So if you have great speeds and latency everywhere else except streaming, definitely consider bypassing your ISP’s router with your own.

    • Samiul

      February 3, 2022 at 4:02 am

      Same here. ATT 500. Both GeForce now and Stadia run trash

    • Nouman Khan

      February 3, 2022 at 5:21 am

      @Samiul I guess you have fiber, same as me. For cable modem users, I remember seeing tons of articles saying modems with Intel Puma 6 chips are terrible for GeForce Now, Stadia etc. I have the Bell Home Hub 3000 (uses an ActionTec chipset) and everyone confirms it’s trash for gaming and to bypass it by getting a SPF to CAT45 converter and plugging it into a decent gaming router by Netgear, Asus or others. I haven’t done it yet but seems to be the way to go.

  21. Pete Dizbon

    February 2, 2022 at 10:52 pm

    Our microwave is directly between the wifi router and our bedroom, every time the microwave is used. we have no connection in and near the bedroom.

    • Romeo V

      February 2, 2022 at 11:37 pm

      Sounds like you have 2.4ghz wifi. If your devices support it, switch to 5 ghz and you’ll avoid that entirely. Microwaves create 2.4ghz interference.

    • Pete Dizbon

      February 3, 2022 at 2:04 am

      @Romeo V We have Wave Broadband and no idea if we can change the setting or if we are allowed to. It’s their equipment.

  22. Keith White

    February 2, 2022 at 10:56 pm

    And it also creates jobs with network sabotaging there’s millions of jobs in this department around the world .

  23. acche2

    February 3, 2022 at 3:50 am

    DNS? Should be the default gateway

  24. Sister Mary Clements

    February 3, 2022 at 9:09 am

    Ask a cancer patient. The most common side affect of radiation therapy is the loss of taste and smell. (5 wink wink G)

  25. philip dias

    February 4, 2022 at 3:33 am

    Get a decent wifi6 router or two (connect with ethernet). If you are like me, you use wifi6 routers as access points and run a pc with pfsense as the “router”

  26. C U

    February 4, 2022 at 2:22 pm

    1. Buy yourself a really good router.
    2. Get rid of your ISP’s router.
    3. Upgrade your internet.
    4. Success

  27. Chuc Nguyen

    February 4, 2022 at 4:40 pm

    Get a WIFI6 router (802.11AX) instead of WIFI5 (802.11AC). Made a HUGE difference in latency.

  28. Alan Turing

    February 5, 2022 at 12:54 pm

    Lemme save you some time,
    How to speed up a slow Wi-Fi signal!
    Just get yourself a good router…

  29. JJ

    February 5, 2022 at 5:01 pm

    Hackers took ur bandwidth
    How to fix that

  30. john davis

    February 5, 2022 at 6:40 pm

    Ok so it’s about wifi….. most devices are still g and n 50 to 100 but if the wifi extender or access point has a gigabite Lan connection you can get the most signal possible by the ap limit greatly increasing over wifi speed .a mesh does not increase download only upload mostly .but good video overall

  31. John B

    February 6, 2022 at 9:44 pm

    I hate it when people wave their hands when they’re talking.

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