Visitor
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2 Messages
Desktop/Laptop not connecting to closest access point (Pod Gen2/Gateway)
I just upgraded to the new XB8-T gateway and unfortunately the coverage is worse than my old gateway despite claims of improved coverage. As a result, I have a desktop and laptop computer in a remote portion of the house that are suddenly running on wifi fumes, with download speeds sometimes below 1MB/S. I already had a single Gen 2 wifi pod installed nearby but for some reason the desktop/laptop will not connect to the pod (per the xfinity app). Some other nearby devices would connect. The pod was located outside of the room so I purchased a second Gen 2 pod and installed it inside the room right next to the devices. To my surprise they still would not connect to either pod, despite the new pod not being used by any other device. I hooked one of the computers up to the pod with an ethernet cable and the download speed jumped up to around 280 MB/S! While this would be an fine solution, tying both of these devices to an ethernet cable is not practicable for us.
Is there a way to force these devices to connect to the pod, which is apparently just sitting there hoping and praying that one day it can help these devices?
user_323c89
Contributor
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30 Messages
24 days ago
Not saying that this is the root of your issue, but more than one Gen 2 Pod can actually have a detrimental impact on your network, Unless you’re talking coverage for an area above maybe 3,500sqft.
There might be an ongoing issue with the XB8 and Gen 2 Pods, as there are a few posts about it on the various forums. However providing workable proof is difficult.
The ideal Gen 2 Pod setup, is to connect it to the XB8 via a high quality Cat6 Ethernet cable. This will allow for what is called Ethernet backhaul, and routinely results in consistently higher throughput speeds.
First, I’d remove both Pods from your network, through the Xfinity app. Then activate only one of the Pods.
if you activated the Pod after you initially set up the WiFi connection on these trouble devices, perhaps you should power cycle the XB8 and the Pod. While they’re booting up, forget the WiFi network from your devices. After the XB8 and Pod are fully online, connect fresh to the network from the devices. You might get lucky.
Keep us posted
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XfinityDilary
Official Employee
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2.2K Messages
22 days ago
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Copingsaw
Visitor
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2 Messages
22 days ago
I appreciate the responses. I have rebooted the gateway and rebooted/relocated the pods several times in this process. The two computers continue to connect only to the gateway. I have also forgotten the Xfinity network on the computers and reconnected to no avail. The pods do show on the Xfinity app as online and the app does a good job of telling me to which access point (gateway or pod) each device on the network is connecting to. I will say that leaving the pods alone for a few days there are a few more remote devices that are now showing as connected to the pods instead of the network but never the desktop or laptop that are most important.
To the question of network coverage, our house is 4,500 square feet and the vast majority does just fine with gateway only, it's just this one remote corner that is the issue. Unfortunately, the gateway is located more towards a corner of the house but it is not ideal or easy to relocate to a more central area. I wish that was possible as I think it would solve the issue as well.
The ethernet suggestion is a good one and I may try to rig up a remote pod to the gateway via ethernet cable and see if that changes anything but that is going to be a weekend project.
To my original question, the lack of a response would suggest that it is not possible through the app or other means to simply force a device to connect to a pod instead of the gateway. That is disappointing as it would be a simple solution.
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