Hi all!
Thanks to all the past contributors to this excellent thread. I've been a happy user of a mixed Tenda MW6/MW3 system for some years, but am now encountering a problem upon upgrading my network.
I am a professional photographer and my main work computer is in a garden office. I keep my photography archive on a Synology NAS system that is connected to my Mac via Gigabit ethernet. The office is some 30m from the main house and until recently has been connected to the network via two MW6's (one in the main house, and another in the office). These provide passable signal strength for most of the year, but in the summer, when the leaves are out and the washing line is up, the signal quality degrades immensely.
In an effort to rectify this, I decided to run an ethernet cable from the house to the office. I was also keen to get the Synology back into the house where it's both safer from thieves, and isolated from my work machine. This provides a greater level of redundancy in the event of fire. I am keen to upgrade my Synology to 10Gb Ethernet, and therefore bought a decent CAT 8 cable to run from the house to the office. I'm all for futureproofing things. One thing led to another and I decided that a decent switch that can handle 10Gb Ethernet was the next order of business. A bit of time on Facebook Marketplace led me to a pretty serious Netgear XS712T which is a 12-port auto-sensing 10Gb Ethernet switch.
At this point, I figured it was a suitable time to also upgrade the Tenda wireless system. I've had a box of MX12 nodes sitting around for a couple of months but haven't had the time to install them. With the upgraded ethernet system going in, I figured it made sense to get the Tenda installed too. This is where things started being problematic.
What I want to do is have the Tenda MX12 system run in AP (access point) mode, with a single node, off in the office doing wired backhaul. My hope is to improve the WiFi coverage and speed in the house, and provide a node out in the office to cover the garden and ensure excellent signal strength out there too. I've included a diagram below to show my current setup.
Purple = Cat 8 Ethernet between Office & House
Solid Blue = Regular gigabit ethernet connections (Cat5e/Cat6/Cat6a/Cat7 etc)
Dotted Blue = WiFi
A few things to note:
Ok - now to explain the problem. Despite best efforts, I cannot make the Office MX12 work in wireless backhaul. Indeed, connecting it up as shown in the diagram causes the entire network to fall over. Everything stops responding until I unplug it from the gigabit switch in the office.
I have tried both the WAN/LAN port (Port 1) and the other two LAN ports. Neither work. I have also tried moving the Office node into the house and connecting it directly to the Netgear switch. Neither of these things work. The Tenda app doesn't show the <-> that denotes wired connection. Furthermore, in any of the configurations described above, connecting the Office node to an ethernet connection causes the system to fall over and start misbehaving.
Connecting the Office node directly to the Primary node does seem to work, but this doesn't help me - I have already run one cable to between the office and house and I really don't see why I should have to run another one. This problem has me stumped. I am not a network expert by any means, but my understanding is that the switches on the network should be basically invisible - they are essentially semi-intelligent junction boxes. However, no matter what I try, as soon as a switch sits between the primary node and the office node, everything falls apart.
Any insight or suggestions would be gratefully received!
P.S. I still have the MW6/MW3 setup, and if I can't get the MX12 setup to work, I might go back and see if the behaviour is any different with the MW6. My gut instinct tells me that the MX12s are quite temperamental...
Thanks to all the past contributors to this excellent thread. I've been a happy user of a mixed Tenda MW6/MW3 system for some years, but am now encountering a problem upon upgrading my network.
I am a professional photographer and my main work computer is in a garden office. I keep my photography archive on a Synology NAS system that is connected to my Mac via Gigabit ethernet. The office is some 30m from the main house and until recently has been connected to the network via two MW6's (one in the main house, and another in the office). These provide passable signal strength for most of the year, but in the summer, when the leaves are out and the washing line is up, the signal quality degrades immensely.
In an effort to rectify this, I decided to run an ethernet cable from the house to the office. I was also keen to get the Synology back into the house where it's both safer from thieves, and isolated from my work machine. This provides a greater level of redundancy in the event of fire. I am keen to upgrade my Synology to 10Gb Ethernet, and therefore bought a decent CAT 8 cable to run from the house to the office. I'm all for futureproofing things. One thing led to another and I decided that a decent switch that can handle 10Gb Ethernet was the next order of business. A bit of time on Facebook Marketplace led me to a pretty serious Netgear XS712T which is a 12-port auto-sensing 10Gb Ethernet switch.
At this point, I figured it was a suitable time to also upgrade the Tenda wireless system. I've had a box of MX12 nodes sitting around for a couple of months but haven't had the time to install them. With the upgraded ethernet system going in, I figured it made sense to get the Tenda installed too. This is where things started being problematic.
What I want to do is have the Tenda MX12 system run in AP (access point) mode, with a single node, off in the office doing wired backhaul. My hope is to improve the WiFi coverage and speed in the house, and provide a node out in the office to cover the garden and ensure excellent signal strength out there too. I've included a diagram below to show my current setup.
Purple = Cat 8 Ethernet between Office & House
Solid Blue = Regular gigabit ethernet connections (Cat5e/Cat6/Cat6a/Cat7 etc)
Dotted Blue = WiFi
A few things to note:
- Eventually I plan to upgrade the Gigabit switch in the office to something that can actually handle 10Gb ethernet connections. That is a project for another day.
- The Synology remains in the office for now, but the intention is to move it back into the main house in due course.
- The Tenda Mesh is currently running in AP mode.
- The NowTV router is the network router. It is looking after DHCP. I have attributed a few static IPs for simplicity. Switch is 192.168.0.2, Primary Node is 192.168.0.3
- The NowTV router has its WiFi access point disabled.
- The wired connection to the Mac Studio in the office is blazing fast. The cables/switches themselves clearly work.
Ok - now to explain the problem. Despite best efforts, I cannot make the Office MX12 work in wireless backhaul. Indeed, connecting it up as shown in the diagram causes the entire network to fall over. Everything stops responding until I unplug it from the gigabit switch in the office.
I have tried both the WAN/LAN port (Port 1) and the other two LAN ports. Neither work. I have also tried moving the Office node into the house and connecting it directly to the Netgear switch. Neither of these things work. The Tenda app doesn't show the <-> that denotes wired connection. Furthermore, in any of the configurations described above, connecting the Office node to an ethernet connection causes the system to fall over and start misbehaving.
Connecting the Office node directly to the Primary node does seem to work, but this doesn't help me - I have already run one cable to between the office and house and I really don't see why I should have to run another one. This problem has me stumped. I am not a network expert by any means, but my understanding is that the switches on the network should be basically invisible - they are essentially semi-intelligent junction boxes. However, no matter what I try, as soon as a switch sits between the primary node and the office node, everything falls apart.
Any insight or suggestions would be gratefully received!
P.S. I still have the MW6/MW3 setup, and if I can't get the MX12 setup to work, I might go back and see if the behaviour is any different with the MW6. My gut instinct tells me that the MX12s are quite temperamental...