Smart Wifi Plus - Ethernet doesnt appear to work properly

[AquilaJT]

Hi there, so I recently acquired a Smart Wifi Plus extender, with the intent to use it as an extender in my garage as the main router doesn't reach, we have an ethernet connection in the garage that works perfectly fine for all other devices, there is a fair amount of speed loss due to distance but I still see 3-400 mbs with a laptop directly connected, which is enough for what we need out there luckily.

However when using this ethernet connection with the smart wifi plus it appears to be prioritising the very weak wireless connection that is accessible from 1 window in the garage, over the ethernet that is connected, which is resulting in a constant "unstable connection" 2 bars and thus no speed, is there a way to force which it uses in the app or will I need to position the extender outside of this weak signal for it to switch to using Ethernet, it would be a weird system if that was how it worked but I'm unsure what else to try at this point other than using a 3rd part extender.

Any ideas or fixes would be greatly appreciated.

[WillKirk]

Have you tested your Ethernet from the house to garage with an Ethernet network cable tester to make sure all 8 wires are connected? I find it unusual that you should ‘lose speed over distance’ on an Ethernet cable which should be good for 100 meters without a switch in between it.

if the cable is damaged this could be why the device is using WiFi instead of the cable. It might simply not be able to.

Best to test the cable with a proper tester before assuming anything else, just to be sure. Certainly I have had at least one cable in my own house be faulty, and the only reason I realised was because it should have shown 1Gb connection and was showing only 100Mb. Tested it and 3 of the wires were not connecting end to end - a break in the cable. As it was structured cable I had to re-cable part of the house back to the attic, but after a new run was put in, back up to 1Gb with showing all 8 wires connected.

[JimM11]

@AquilaJT Are you trying to just plug a device into the Ethernet of the Extender, if so you are only connecting that device via the wireless signal off Extender to the EE router.

Cable the Extender Ethernet to the Cable from Garage to the EE router, that will give you a wired backhaul system, then wi-fi wireless should run at max speed close to your extender in the Garage, as long as the device connect's to it and does not try to jump all the way back, devices decide were they want to go,