So this is the place we're staying in Singapore with some of my wife's relatives.
It's absolutely beautiful. We're talking, like, talking parrot, teak wood stairs, just gorgeous interior.
Actually, it was designed by the owner and then built on this lot here in Singapore.
Everything about it is just amazing and beautiful, except for one thing.
The Wi-Fi is awful. I was getting disconnections all over the place.
I was getting slowdowns. I couldn't even send hangouts messages half the time.
So being me, I was like, okay, so what's your Wi-Fi solution?
What's wrong with your internet? Because the speed test is fine.
It's 50 down, about eight up, which should be plenty for all of that stuff.
And he shows it to me and I go, oh, okay.
So these guys are using the ISP provided modem, switch, router, access point combo unit.
The structure of this place is pure, like, foot-thick concrete.
And then they've got a repeater down on the landing for the second story that is supposed to provide better coverage downstairs.
Awful solution.
So it's time for us to figure out some kind of a networking home makeover while we're staying here.
What the crap am I doing back here?
It's like I traveled through time to tell you guys that Intel's new 750 series SSD
utilized the NVMe standard providing speeds never seen before on consumer storage drives.
Click anywhere to learn more.
All right, so we're here at the famous Simlim Square where I'll be trying to find some better wireless gear
and just kind of generally checking it out because I've heard a lot of stuff about this place.
Number one is that it's an awesome place to find pretty much anything electronics and computer-y.
And number two is that it's a great place to get scammed with everyone giving different sorts of advice.
But apparently Mobile 22 PTE Limited and Gadget Terminal PTE Limited have had a fair number of complaints
as of the last period here, so I should watch out for those guys.
Important notice.
Yeah, let's head inside.
They have everything here. That last place had, like, an entire rack of machetes.
I wish they'd had this place when we lost our microphone in Taipei.
I wonder if I need one of these.
Probably not.
I think there's five or six stories?
They got all kinds of fun stuff on the second floor.
RC stuff, some more computer-y type stuff, and ladders.
Lots of ladders.
I guess if it's an entire, I mean, Singapore's what, eight million people?
So you're gonna have a third of the population of Canada all within driving distance of this place.
What do you need online stores for?
Whoa, look at this.
It's like a sea of technology.
Okay, so I think we found our first networking gear shop.
Hello.
Hi.
I am looking for some wireless stuff.
Oh.
Lunch.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Do you know what time?
Maybe 10 minutes, 20 minutes?
About 20 minutes.
About 20 minutes?
Yes.
All right.
I will come back in 20 minutes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Hi.
Yeah, I'm actually looking for, let's see, I think it would be about a 30-foot Ethernet
cable.
White?
Oh, you only have bulk for white.
So, the third floor looks like the place to be for getting the networking stuff we need.
This is her shop where I was told to ask them about the fasteners and white cables.
Oh, look at that.
You're bringing everything.
I need a 10-meter white Ethernet cable.
No, only Cat 7.
Only Cat 7.
Okay.
How much is that then?
It's a little overkill.
Oh, nice.
It's like a flat one too.
That's actually kind of awesome.
$20 is a lot for a 10-meter Ethernet cable though.
Yeah.
It's a lot for a 10-meter Ethernet cable though.
Okay.
So, another question for you, do you have any fasteners, like adhesive, like sticky
fasteners?
Maybe you can make a bit more.
If this fits, I will buy this.
Deal?
Yep.
Still good.
Okay.
So, I need, let's say, three packs of that.
This one, left one.
Last one.
You already made the sale and now you don't have enough of them.
Okay.
Well.
Last one.
I...
Oops.
I spilled them all.
Fifteen?
Okay.
I'll make it work.
So, I want this and this.
$28 for our Ethernet cable and our fasteners.
All right.
So, let's head up to the fourth floor.
Maybe we can find some more wireless stuff there before we head back to the shop on the
third floor.
Wow.
Three laptop stores right in a row.
More laptop stores.
Okay.
More laptop stores.
Too bad I'm not shopping for a laptop.
All right.
Well, these guys are more like my speed.
I need a 128-gig SSD and I need a two-gig stick of DDR2.
$99 for my SSD and $46 for my RAM.
I think I can do better on the SSD, but I'm not sure about the RAM.
Thank you.
Two-gig stick of DDR2.
$55.
$55?
To DDR3, cheap.
Yeah.
How about the 128-gig SSD?
$105.
$105?
Memory 1.
$105.
How about the SSD?
$139?
Looks like we're back to the first store.
You guys win.
Everyone else's price sucks.
Okay.
DDR2?
Hello.
$800.
DDR2, $800.
Perfect.
Yeah, I come all the way here to buy computer hardware, right?
You want to be in the video?
$145.
All right.
Everyone else gave me really bad prices, maybe because I'm white.
We got our RAM and SSD, but we still need our networking stuff.
Like all of these laptops are broken.
Why do you keep them?
Just in case.
Oh good, yeah, this one does include
both the PoE adapter and the unit.
So in fact, I won't even need a PoE switch.
That's excellent.
Another option would just be to get like a Nighthawk X6
and call it a day.
You know, repeat things.
Yeah, I don't wanna use a repeater.
529, these things are like 300 bucks where I'm from.
That's ridiculous.
Yeah.
I will have to, I will have to come back.
No problem.
Okay, another network specialty looking store.
Cash price, 378.
378, wow.
Maybe this place has stuff.
At least it's not a laptop store.
Okay, there's nothing in there.
What's pricing on the AC66U?
243.
243, okay.
Not bad, so far you're the best option right now.
245 for an AC66U, I'm gonna have to,
no PoE, I have to get power to it somehow.
This is ridiculous.
Like I promised your uncle one cable to the pillar,
not like two cables to the pillar.
So you know what I think we're gonna do?
Oh, I don't like this at all,
but we're gonna go get one AP Pro
and we're going to hope that the coverage is good enough
from right in the center.
And if it's not, then we're gonna need another one.
Whatever they have there.
I want to buy it.
The first study cafe.
This place is like a maze.
I can't even find the stores we were shopping at before.
AP Pro, 389.
AP Pro, 408.
Ah, we just saved 20 bucks.
Do you guys have a UniFi AP Pros in stock?
Okay, well, I don't have much more time to shop,
so I don't think we have a choice.
Yep, let's do it.
Well, overall, I'm not happy about it,
but at least they waived the 3% stupid credit card.
I don't know.
It's a pretty hard surcharge after I asked, what, three times.
All right, so we're back.
Let's unpack our spoils and get started here.
So there's actually two projects
because there was some complaining
about the desktop computer upstairs.
So for that, we need an SSD and a stick of memory.
So we got that.
And then for the Wi-Fi, we need our new UniFi AP Pro,
our CAT 7 cable, and then these cable management tabs here.
So let's get started, shall we?
This is so not a CAT 7 cable.
Well, I guess it could be CAT 6.
So what's the easiest way?
Well, this door gets to be open a crack from now on.
Is that gonna be a problem?
That, my friend, is how it is gonna be to get good internet.
Go right down here so we get a nice clean line.
Okay, so I'm not sure about ideal.
There's no location.
Part of the problem is this structure is all concrete.
Concrete, concrete.
It doesn't look like I'm gonna have a choice.
So either I think I'm gonna do that pillar on the second floor
or I'm gonna run it to mount on this thing.
What I might ask is, what's the priority?
Because if the priority is the downstairs,
then I might be better off to go here.
That's what you get for having bad Wi-Fi.
So one of the reasons we had to,
spend so much on our access point was PoE, power over Ethernet, so that I don't have to run those
two wires. And what I like about the ubiquities anyway, is that they come with an injector in
case you don't have a PoE switch. Do these two pronged ones work here? Oh, you have an adapter.
Oh, handy. All right. Did not count on that. So we might need to use some kind of adhesive backing
and I didn't get any extra. Oh yeah. I also need to steal one of your Ethernet cables. Okay.
Now let's go plug this guy in. See if we got power. I might have to go switch those things
around. I always get it wrong. Any light? Oh, there it goes. All right. Now we got to get the
console fired up. Okay. So to configure the thing, we need to install the ubiquity controller
software. So let's fire up this ancient Dell Optiplex 760. This is actually the computer
I'll be upgrading and get it set up. Once we've got the controller set up, it doesn't actually
ever need to interact with the controller. So I'm not worried about that. We just need to get it
set up the first time. Who says text don't, you know, work out. No wonder they want this computer
upgraded. I can't even do anything in an internet browser. Even the mouse movement is slow. Oh my
goodness. This computer needs more than just a new SSD and some RAM. The most up-to-date browser
or something. All right. So per the usual, the ubiquity software is super easy to get set up. So
all we've got to do now is manually set up our channels, manually set up our widths.
During the setup wizard, I was able to set up the SSID and everything. So what's left now then
is to have a look at the surrounding area. And you can see that this is why I thought it was so
important to have five gigahertz. Cause actually from the, from the outside,
from the backyard, there's a bunch of stuff in here. So stuff on channel six, seven, um, their
old Wi-Fi was on channel one, actually both the X, the repeater and the original access point were on
one. So they're just talking over each other, but on five gigahertz, basically empty. So actually,
the only thing we can see right now is the one that I just put in. So we're going to go ahead
and we're going to play around with positioning a little bit. We're going to make sure that from
everywhere within the house, we've got a lot of stuff in here. So we're going to go ahead and
set this baby up. All right. So here in the back corner, we can see there's a couple on channel 36
from this neighbor, but our strength is still not that bad on five gigahertz. Naturally, this floor
is all very good with the access point right in the middle. Even five gigahertz can punch through,
you know, one concrete wall. Okay. Actually should be workable. All right. So way at the back is
actually quite a lot of work. So we're going to go ahead and set this baby up. All right. So here
at the back, you can see what I was talking about with 2.4 gigahertz being completely congested and
five gigahertz basically being our best bet to not be completely interfering with absolutely
everything else. Yeah. You won't be FaceTiming back here. Ooh, Russian girls. So now that we've
determined the location we want, I'm just going to go ahead and set this baby up. All right. So
I'm going to throw a little sticky note on here that has the admin password and all that good
stuff. Actually, I'm going to put it on the mounting plate. Then I have double-sided adhesive.
That's the best solution I was able to come up with. I got two different kinds. So I'm going
to hedge my bets and I'm going to use half of each. While what I wanted to do to have it on
the bottom stair. Nope. Okay. This one. I'm going to apply pressure about 30 seconds.
Okay. Um, I do want to leave this like some kind of a knot here, actually. If the adhesive fails,
I don't want it to come crashing to the ground. So this is where my cable management tabs from
upstairs come in. Straight lines are good. All right. How many times do I have left? Oh, nine.
So that is nine feet. Okay. So we're going to go every foot. Okay. Okay. So I think we're done now.
Okay. So I think we're done now. Our connectivity was pretty good to begin with. Now, this is all
because we're trying to figure out how to set up and put it back. The hardest part is getting everything
All right. So that is nine feet. Okay. So we're going to go every foot. Okay. So I think we're done now. Our
Okay. So I think we're done now. Our connectivity was pretty good to begin with. Now, our
Our connectivity up here is the only place in the house
where it's really not as consistent as I'd like,
not as good as I'd like, but I think we found a solution
because it's only very rarely that someone
is gonna be using something like a phone up here.
This is actually the worst performing device
in the house for Wi-Fi.
That laptop over there, that old laptop,
gets 40 megabit from the position on this desk right here
on our range network.
So that's what we ended up doing.
We made two SSIDs, speed and range.
Speed can saturate the 100 megabit connection
that we have here at this location
from anywhere downstairs, pretty much.
And then range is able to,
even on our worst case scenario device,
give us about five to 10 megabit up here.
Not too shabby.
Then what we did was we reconfigured
the existing access point as more of a failover.
So we called this one attic.
And so if range on a particular device
is not working well up here,
can connect directly to that one.
Then we like to have it
left the range extender downstairs.
And with a little bit of repositioning,
I'm able to get 20 megabit
at the very bottom floor with that one.
But we're just gonna leave that unplugged
unless our Ubiquiti access point fails
or something like that.
So now we have not only better speeds
pretty much throughout the house,
but we also have a failover system
in the event that the access point dies
or something like that.
So not too shabby.
Is it the ideal solution?
No.
What I wanted was a 24 seven controller running
and two access points,
one at the top, one at the bottom.
Then I think I could get anywhere from 50 to 100 megabit
anywhere on the property.
That would have been great.
We weren't able to do that because you know how things are.
So this is not a bad solution overall.
What madness is this?
I'm back in the studio.
Crunchyroll must have bent space and time
to bring me back anyway.
Crunchyroll is a site created by anime fans for anime fans.
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What's cool is that all the content on their site
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And if you have a premium membership,
which you can go to crunchyroll.com slash Linus
to try out for 30 days of unlimited free,
completely ad free, you get $10.
You get 1080p streaming as well as new shows from Japan
within an hour of their premiere.
And you can stream anywhere on a variety of devices
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So once you've decided you like premium,
you can continue for 6.95 a month.
So head over to crunchyroll.com slash Linus
to try it out now.
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