Terrible home network performance

[Cave Man]

We have several Macs, iPads and iPhones on our home network that is controlled by a Velop 4 node wifi network. Connection to the outside world works great, but trying to connect from one Mac to another is just awful. It's been this way for years, even before we had the Velop and were using an AirPort Extreme Base Station for wifi. Most devices are on the current OSes but one computer is still running Mojave (can't update any further). Trying to connect to another Mac usually ends (e.g., MacBook Air M4 to Mac mini M4 Pro) does nothing. If I invoke smb://Mac-Mini-M4.local I can connect but once I try to mount a volume I just get the spinning beach ball kernel panic. Restarting the network does not solve the problem, even a complete power recycle.

Any ideas why my home network suck so much?

 

[Fishrrman]

I propose an experiment.

Take the OLD Mac (the one still running on Mojave), and connect it directly to ANOTHER Mac using an ethernet cable. Or... connect through a WIRED connection to the Velop (assuming it has enough ports).

Then see if you can establish a network connection between the two of them.

The purpose of this experiment is to eliminate "the factor of wifi", to determine whether or not that's getting in the way...

 

[BrianBaughn]

I occasionally connect to another Mac over the local network and every once in a while things seem screwy…but for the most part it works well. I do have DHCP reservations set in my router's firmware so that I can use the local IP address of the computer to connect. I'm under the impression that connections work better when local IPs are consistent.

 

[throAU]

How big is your house?

Not familiar with the gear you're using, but if you have WIFI gear that is pre wifi 6, bin it and upgrade.

The difference between access points with decent MIMO antennas on WIFI 6+ and previous is night and day, never mind wifi 7, etc.

Also if you're in a typical 4 bedroom house you likely do not need 4 access points, just get 1-2 WIFI 6E/7 APs and it will cover the house.


If you've got 4 APs running on 2.4Ghz in close proximity there isn't really enough channels to support them.

So could be a combo of :
old wifi gear that's garbage
too many APs in too small space on 2.4Ghz