WiFi working on mobile phone but not most other devices.

[Wanting_WiFi]

Hi, 

Got new 4G home broadband today, connects to my mobile phone and partners laptop, however won't connect to my laptop, comes up with no Internet, secured, and will not connect to chromecast or amazon alexa.

[PeteG]

Hello. 

Welcome to the Three Community. 

That's quite strange that it would allow some devices to connect, but not others. Is it possible that you have settings changes from your previous network configured in your other devices that the new router isn't configured for?

To rule out any configuration issues, It might be worth factory resetting the Hub, and setting it up without changing any of it's settings, and then connect one of the other devices that didn't work before to see if it has success on a completely fresh connection. 

Pete. 

[RobF]

I have noticed that many devices "dislike" the Zyxel NR5103EV2 5 GHz WiFi.  Most notably a Chromecast can see the 5GHz network but cannot connect.  A smart TV would struggle to connect to the 5GHz network each day so it's easier to use 2.4 GHz instead.  Rather confident that the problem is with the Zyxel router.  Recent android mobiles seem happy with 5 GHz though.

[JonathanB]

Thanks for this insight @RobF. What was your solution, have you split the 2.4Ghz and 5GHz then?

Some 5GHz connection issues can simply be down to range/interference. Were the Chromecast and TV positioned quite near the router at the times you were running into these issues?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[BobF]

I have split the bands but I would like to be able to persuade the Chromecast to work with 5 GHz too.  I haven't had this problem with Sky or BT routers.  Any suggestions as to changes I could make to the 5 GHz wireless configuration will be gratefully received!

[RobF]

I set up the NR5103EV2 5 GHz guest network and tried (and failed) to connect the Chromecast to that.  I then tried to connect the Chromecast to the original 5 GHz network and it worked!

I had set the original 5 GHz network to WPA/WPA2 but that didn't work.  I changed it back to WPA2 at the same time as setting up the guest network so toggling that setting might have been important.

[PeteG]

Hello. 

Sorry, I don't have access to the settings of the Hub in order to check if this is possible on the new hub. When splitting the bands, does the hub allow you to rename them separately?

If so, you could rename them to something like "Home network 2.4g" and "Home network 5g" for example, then when connecting your devices, you get to choose which network you're going to connect the device to. You could have multi media devices on the 5ghz band, and then choose the 2.4ghz band for smart home accessories. 

Internally on the device the networks are still one LAN, so those devices can all talk to each other, unlike guest networks which often limit guest devices from talking to main LAN devices. 

Pete. 

[BobF]

Hi Pete,

I had split the bands and named them exactly in that fashion because the single network name for both bands caused intermittent problems with a Smart TV.  Once the Smart TV was connected to the 2.4 GHz band alone it worked reliably.  Today I disabled the guest network and bizarrely the Smart TV did connect successfully to the explicit 5 GHz network for the very first time.  Can I ask which firmware the NR5103EV2 should be using?

Thanks

RobF

[PeteG]

I'm glad it finally connected for you. 

The firmware version for that Hub is V1.00(ACIR.0)C0.

Pete.

[Simon1402]

Try changing the APN to manual and IPv4 only.