Garden room Wi-Fi - DHCP/Static or PPPoE?

[JoCHills]

Hi

My brain's bleeding, can anyone help?

I have a CAT6 connection to the garden room and it was working fine off a mini-router via DHCP but (maybe?) causing problems with the Skyhub home internet connections in the house (dunno, this is a guess there's been months of problems).

Anyway I tried to set up a smart radiator with a dongle and app and it took the garden room internet down.  it was suggested the mini-router in the garden room should be PPPoE with the SkyHub using the same username and password but I read elsewhere this isn't possible.  Then I read I shouldn't be using another router in the garden room to extend the Wi-Fi.

What SHOULD I be doing please.  I'm a great admin person and good at following IT instructions but I'm not an IT expert!

cheers!

jo

[TimmyBGood]

@JoCHills 

Using a second router is absolutely not ideal, and will undoubtedly cause problems if left on default settings.  At the very least it must have DHCP disabled, and ideally be set to 'AP Mode' (if possible).  A much better bit of hardware would be a dedicated wireless access point.

[JoCHills]

Many thanks @TimmyBGood !  The 

[JoCHills]

Many thanks @TimmyBGood ! Much obliged. 

The only options I have on the mini router are DHCP, Static or PPPoE - might one of those settings work potentially? 

If not Is there a Wireless access point that's compatible with FTTP that you'd recommend?

happy weekend and thank you 

[TimmyBGood · Accepted solution]

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@JoCHills wrote:

The only options I have on the mini router are DHCP, Static or PPPoE - might one of those settings work potentially? 

No, those are all router settings intended to connect to external broadband directly, not to an internal network behind another router (the Sky Hub)

If not Is there a Wireless access point that's compatible with FTTP that you'd recommend?

WAPs are compatible with any external connection because they talk to the router, nor the broadband.  Personally I use a cheap 802.11n TP-Link AP because speed within its area of coverage isn't particularly important: for better than that you'd want 802.11ac.

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[JoCHills]

Thank you so much @TimmyBGood !!

I got the wrong information (from the internet) & got a router instead.  Have ordered, will let you know how I go.  If this sorts all the Wi-Fi/internet connection problems we've been having I will do a little happy dance and you will have fixed my bad broadband karma! 

[JoCHills]

@TimmyBGood - thank you! Everything seems to be working and hopefully this mini router on DHCP is the reason we've had months of connection problems.  I was following tech advice from a random garden room website.  I won't do that again! Have a great Sunday. 

[TimmyBGood]

@JoCHills 

Certainly having two DHCP servers is never ideal because each time a client device broadcasts a request for an address it's a race between the servers to respond, and one of them is probably going to issue an incorrect configuration (advertising itself as the broadband gateway when it isn't).

[JoCHills]

@TimmyBGood  Just for my own sanity... if one of the household devices was an NHS laptop running through a VPN could this play merry hell with everything and randomly kick devices off internet even though they were - technically - connected to the Wi-Fi? (Blessings on your head... this has taken over my life for months, we've had 4 engineers out, no one even mentioned the extra router - the stress has been huge!) 

[jamesn123]

@JoCHills 

A client device using a VPN connection would not cause issues with your router/home network