When I hardline the 2nd and 3rd pod to the internet, they get kicked offline. How do I fix this?

[Lopiano]

I’m trying to hardwire all 3 pods to the internet because my house is pretty spacious. Whenever I hardline the 2nd and 3rd pod to the internet, they start blinking yellow and get knocked offline. I have checked all the cat 6 ports and they are all fine when I directly connect other devices. 

If I then unplug the cat6 cables from the back of the 2nd and 3rd pod, they will wirelessly mesh and work fine but I cannot get them to work with a wired connection. Does anyone have any advice? Do I need factory reset the pods since they were first used as a wireless mesh?    Thanks. 

[olavrb]

How are you connecting it all up? 2nd and 3rd Nest Wifi units must be connected downstream from the main/master/primary Nest Wifi unit, like so:

Or daisy chained if you don't have an unmanaged switch:

Make sure not to do this:

And don't do this either:

[Lopiano]

Thanks for the reply. They are connected like image 1. I have an unmanaged switch, that leads to the different rooms in my home. 

so I have the main router in my office. 

The other pod are in the master bedroom and the media room upstairs.  I was trying to plug both of those into the cat 6 ports in those walls (which are connected to the unmanaged switch). I know they are both live because I’ve tested them and have connected Apple TVs directly to both ports and both will work via Ethernet connection.  But the moment I connect either of those pods through the hardline it kicks both #2 and #3 offline. 

The main one in the office will stay online 

[olavrb]

Image 1 is the recommended way, so that's good. 🙂

What exact switch are you using? Brand and model number. Nest Wifi will not work with switches that has loop detection/prevention features (like STP; spanning tree protocol). More on that:

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6274262?hl=en

[Lopiano]

Oh thanks. I didn’t know that. I’ll check as soon as I’m back home. I just find it odd that they’ll work individually but once I connect multiples they won’t work. Almost like they’re conflicting 

[olavrb]

Nest Wifi must handle loops on it own, if any downstream equipment has loop detection too it can create problems, conflict.

[Lopiano]

I have a tp-link 8-port easy smart switch

model: TL-SG108PE

will this work?

I have the AT&T installer coming back so I was going to show him all of your instructions. 

The builder of my home didn’t label all the wires and ports like they should have so it’s making it more difficult than it should be 

[olavrb]

TP-Link TL-SG108PE is a managed switch, a smart switch. So it's not unmanaged.

• https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/8-port-switch/tl-sg108pe/

It should work if you make sure to dumb it down to a unmanaged switch by not using VLAN tags, disable loop prevention, and make sure BPDU forwarding is enabled. It's mentioned in following guidance:

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6274262?hl=en

Without proper labeling I can see how this easily gets confusing.

[Lopiano]

Ok thank you. Would you recommend going and picking up a new switch, or do you think an AT&T installer will understand your above instructions. The part about what to do with the switch is a bit above my IT pay grade 🤦🏼‍♂️

thanks for all your advice.

[olavrb]

I wouldn't think an ISP would touch equipment that's not theirs tbh. But if they do and have networking experience I believe they should be able to make sense of this. Tell them that the primary Nest Wifi unit acts as a NAT router with firewall, DNS and DHCP, it's not just an access point. And that everything else must be downstream from it.

The easiest would probably be to get a unmanaged switch, like TP-Link TL-SG108, or Netgear GS108. Else try to find a guide on how to enter the switch admin web GUI, it should be doable. 🙂

Happy to help, but I don't think I got more advise to share now.

[Lopiano]

Just spent about 2 hours with him and we couldn't get it to work wired.  For some reason we could not get into the switch's settings using the ip address when connected directly to the switch.

I just placed an order on amazon for an unmanaged switch because it was getting too frustrating.  If we connect it like diagram 1 and I have an unmanaged switch should it work wired directly out of the box, or will I still need to mess with settings?

[olavrb]

If connected correctly it should work out of the box.

[Lopiano]

Getting a little discouraged lol. I just wanted to get the performance as good as I can and then hopefully leave it. 

300-350mb up and down isn’t slow but there are so many devices once the kids are all here, and then we have our appliances, cameras, etc so the device count gets up there quick.  I think it’s close to around 50 

Even considered swapping over to those Netgear orbis, but I think I’d still have to do all this reconfiguration there too

[olavrb]

Wait, how many Nest Wifi units do you have? Five in total, or three?

Reason I ask is that mesh (802.11s) does not travel over ethernet. So if the units you are hardwiring was previously providing mesh / wireless backhaul to the units that go offline, that might be the cause of this behavior.

[Lopiano]

I have 3 total Nest wifi Units.  I have like a little internet closet thingy that holds all switch and the main gateway that is in the laundry room.   The main 2.5 GB/S speed is routed to my office cat 6 port where I have the main Nest wifi pod hardwired.   

I have one more wirelessly meshed in the master bedroom (downstairs), and then one more also wirelessly meshed in the media room (upstairs).

I was under the impression that I could hardwire the other 2 to the cat6 ports (because each room has a cat6 wall port), and get better performance than wirelessly meshing them together.

The problem comes when I hardwire the 3rd one (regardless of if it is the upstairs or downstairs), it knocks both of them offline.

Does this make sense what I'm saying?

[Lopiano]

I'm looking at your image, and I actually don't have the primary hardwired to the gateway AND the switch.  AT&T moved my primary google pod into my office.  They made sure that the 2.5 GB port was connected to the cat6 port in my office and then just hardwired the primary one there.   So it is only connected to the wall port, it isn't physically also connected to the switch.   Is that the problem?

[olavrb]

Then it sounds like your situation is actually the fourth diagram?

If you're still not certain you've connected it up correctly: Can you make a drawing that shows all cables and boxes that sits between the internet and the primary Nest Wifi unit? Modem, switches, patch panels, wall outlets.

And then how the other Nest Wifi units are connected up.

If you forget patch panels and wall outlets as they're essentially just extending the ethernet cable run, it should be:

• Modem -> Primary Nest Wifi unit -> Switch -> Secondary, Third etc. Nest Wifi units and other devices.

---

And all Google Wifi and Nest Wifi units' ethernet ports are 1gbe (gigabit) ports only, 2.5gbe won't make any difference in performance for them.

[Lopiano]

Yes it does look like I am the 4th picture. So if I’m interpreting it correctly, I’m missing one cable from the primary that needs to run back to the unmanaged switch?

All of the rest seem to match the wires of the first image 

[olavrb]

No, cable back to the switch again will not help.

The main/primary Nest Wifi unit must be directly connected to the modem, to its' WAN port.

Then, from main/primary Nest Wifi LAN port you add the switch.

Check the 1st vs. the 4th diagram again. 🙂

[Lopiano]

I have 2GB fiber internet and I’m getting about 2.5 down and 2.5 up to the gateway. Granted I know Wi-Fi is slower but I’m only getting about 300mb down and up when I’m standing next to the satellites. So I’m trying to see if hardlining will work