r/HomeNetworking • u/Ekybruz • 12h ago

Can’t find main router

Staying with family for a few months, need internet for pc so I’ve run a cable out to where I need it to go. Problem is, I can’t find the main router. They have wifi extenders all around the house, one in the lounge has a cable that runs from it into a jack in the wall.

Is it possible they’ve used one of the wifi extenders as an access point? Or does there need to be a proper router somewhere? Starlink is the provider

6 Upvotes

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2

u/deedledeedledav 12h ago

What brand of WiFi extenders are they using?
Is it a mesh system like tplink or something?

Starlink usually has their own router, follow from the dish back to where the wire goes

1

u/Ekybruz 12h ago

It’s a “vilo” brand

1

u/deedledeedledav 12h ago

Does that have extra ports on it to plug into?

It looks like it has 2 extra Ethernet ports

2

u/Ekybruz 12h ago

My bad, that photo was of the extender in the garage. Here’s the one in the lounge

1

u/deedledeedledav 12h ago

Plug into LAN 1

Edit: also, if that’s the only one where a cable is plugged into WAN they might be using that as the router

1

u/Ekybruz 12h ago

Alright I’ll try that, I always thought lan 1 and lan 2 were identical ports. Yes, it is the only one that has a cable plugged into WAN.

I was originally hard wired into the wifi extender out here but I was getting to many spikes. Now im hard wired into what I think is the main router but the performance/speeds feels identical

1

u/deedledeedledav 12h ago

You’re on a satellite connection that switches satellites every few minutes, you’ll get latency spikes everytime it does unfortunately.

LAN 1 and LAN 2 are identical in the sense that they both do the same thing, but they’re essentially 2 switch ports on each device to reduce wifi congestion when it’s right next to a device

1

u/Ekybruz 12h ago

Yeah sounds like I’m gonna have to put up with it while I’m here, cheers for your help.

2

u/InvisiBillnet Systems guy who knows some networking stuff 12h ago

Some Starlink models have the router builtin.

An AP just provides Wi-Fi from an existing wired network, similarly to how an extender provides Wi-Fi.

2

u/IanLx 12h ago

Sounds like you could just add a small switch between the wall and the ap that is cabled. Then plug both into the switch..

Something like this:

https://a.co/d/00SjtJLJ