Speed & Upgrades · Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi weak spots: audit your home network in three passes
Wi-Fi that feels slow is rarely broken — it is usually one room, one band, or one old device. This audit does not change a setting until the numbers say which of the three it is. Twenty minutes, one laptop, and a cable if you own one.
Short answer
To audit home Wi-Fi, measure the wired line first, then test the same device in every room you use, then repeat those rooms on a second device. Slow wired means the line or provider; slow in one room means distance, walls or interference; slow on one device everywhere means that device. Most weak spots are fixed for free by moving the router into the open, putting nearby devices on 5 GHz, and changing the 2.4 GHz channel to 1, 6 or 11.
Pass one
Wired baseline, then every room
Pass two
Match the pattern to a cause
Pass three
Fix the one thing at fault
If Wi-Fi is not working at all — connected but no internet, or the network missing entirely — this is the wrong page. That is a fault, not a slowdown: work through the no-internet guide first, then come back.
Measure the line, then the rooms
Before changing a single setting, find out where the speed actually disappears. Three measurements in this order tell you almost everything.
A wired baseline first
Plug a laptop straight into the router with an Ethernet cable and run the speed test. That number is the ceiling everything else competes with. If it is already far below the plan you pay for, the wireless side is not your problem — the line, the modem or the provider is.
Every room where you actually sit
Carry the same device around the house and test in each place you use it: kitchen table, bedroom, the chair by the window, the room above the router. Write the numbers down. Consistent results mean the house is fine; one weak room is a weak spot, and one slow room is a much cheaper problem than a slow connection.
Then a second device
Repeat the same tour with a phone or a second laptop. If both devices are slow in the same room, the room is the problem. If one device is slow everywhere, the device is the problem — usually a 2.4 GHz-only adapter or a network card with power saving switched on.
Read the pattern, then act
Match what you saw to the table below. Each pattern has a usual cause and one fix worth trying before anything else.
| What you saw | Usual cause | Try first |
|---|---|---|
| Slow everywhere, wired and wireless | The line, the modem or the provider — not Wi-Fi | Power-cycle modem and router for 30 seconds, retest wired. Still slow means call the provider. |
| Wired is fine, every room over Wi-Fi is slower | The router, its settings, or the band it hands out | Separate the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz names, put nearby devices on 5 GHz, and set the router off the floor. |
| Fine near the router, drops in one or two rooms | Distance, walls, or something between you and the router | Move the router, then add a mesh node or wired access point for that end of the house. |
| One device slow in every room, others fine | That device — an old adapter, power saving, or a driver | Disable adapter power saving, update the driver, and check whether it only supports 2.4 GHz. |
| Speed collapses at night or while others stream | Contention in the house or on the street | Check the router's device list, pause large downloads and cloud backups, and retest. |
| Fast, then stalls for a few seconds at a time | Interference or a weak wireless link, not bandwidth | Change the 2.4 GHz channel to 1, 6 or 11, keep the router clear of microwaves and cordless bases. |
Fix what the pattern points to
These are the four changes that recover the most speed in a home, roughly in order of effort.
Move the router, not the furniture
Central, off the floor, out in the open. Not inside a cupboard, not behind the television, not on top of a metal shelf, and not on the floor behind the sofa. A router in a corner spends half its power covering the wall behind it.
Use the band that fits the distance
5 GHz is faster but short-winded: give it to devices in the same room or one wall away. 2.4 GHz travels further and through more walls. If your router names both networks separately, rename the phone and laptop onto 5 GHz and keep only the far-away devices on 2.4 GHz.
Cut the things in the way
Baby monitors, cordless phone bases, microwaves in use, fish tanks, mirrors and foil-backed insulation all eat signal. So does the router sitting next to an external hard drive or a USB 3 hub. Clear a metre of open air around the router and test again.
Add coverage the right way
An extender works, but it repeats the signal it received, so anything behind it runs at roughly half the speed of the room it borrowed from. A mesh node with a wired backhaul, or a second router run as an access point, keeps the full speed. If the distant room only needs email, an extender is fine. If someone works there, wire it.
The audit, as a checklist
Work down both columns with the test result in front of you. Nothing here needs new hardware, and nothing here needs a technician.
Audit checklist
0 of 8 doneWhen the audit says replace the router
A router is past its usefulness when it is single-band (2.4 GHz only), has no gigabit Ethernet ports, offers only WPA2 with no WPA2/WPA3 option, or is more than about five years old and still on Wi-Fi 5. Any of those caps the whole house no matter how good the line is.
Before that, most slow homes are fixed for free by placement and band selection. If you are replacing anything, replace the adapter in the slow device first — it is cheaper than a router and often the actual limit.
Wi-Fi audit questions
How long does a Wi-Fi audit take?
About twenty minutes for a normal house. A wired test takes under a minute, each room test about the same, and the pattern in the results tells you where to spend the rest of the time. The point is to stop guessing: three measurements usually beat an hour of changing settings.
Does moving the router really make a difference?
Often the largest single improvement available, and it is free. A router inside a cupboard, on the floor, or behind a television loses a large part of its signal before it leaves the room. Central, elevated and in the open is the placement that reaches the most of the house.
Should I buy an extender or a mesh system?
An extender repeats a wireless signal it already received, so devices behind it run at roughly half the speed of the room it borrowed from — acceptable for email and browsing, poor for working or streaming. A mesh node with a wired backhaul, or a second router used as an access point, keeps full speed. Wire it if anyone works in that room.
How do I fix weak Wi-Fi signal in one room?
Move the router closer to the middle of the house and out of any cupboard or floor-level spot, put the devices in that room on the 5 GHz band if they are within a wall or two, and clear anything dense between the room and the router. If the room is at the far end of the building, a mesh node or a second router used as a wired access point fixes it properly; a wireless extender will roughly halve the speed it repeats.
Why is Wi-Fi slow in one room but fast in another?
Because what sits between your device and the router changes the link. Two or three internal walls, a metal stud, foil-backed plasterboard, a chimney breast, an aquarium or a mirror all reduce signal, and distance reduces it further. A room that tests well above half the speed of a room near the router is normal; a room below about a third of it is a weak spot worth fixing.
My Wi-Fi shows full bars but pages still load slowly. Why?
Bars show signal strength, not capacity. A strong signal shared with a microwave, a neighbour on the same channel, or a router that has been running for months can still deliver very little throughput. Test with a cable; if the line is fine, work the interference and band items in step three.
Confirm the fix
Retest after each change, in the same room and with the same device. One change, one test — otherwise you will not know which fix worked.