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Before buying new equipment, try five low-cost Wi-Fi adjustments: move the router into the open, raise it, adjust its antennas, choose a band suited to the device’s location, and check for firmware or channel issues. Curved aluminum foil is a more speculative directional experiment. None is guaranteed to improve every home; check the weak spot before and after each change to see whether it helps yours.
How to test a Wi-Fi change fairly
Pick the room or spot where the connection is weakest, and use the same device and the same activity for each check. Note whether pages load, video buffers, or a call drops; if you use a speed-test app, take readings in the same place and under similar conditions. Change one thing at a time, then check again. That makes it easier to tell whether the adjustment helped rather than simply coinciding with a temporary change in network use.
These are troubleshooting steps, not a promise of a particular speed increase. A placement change can help with coverage, but it cannot upgrade a slow internet plan or fix every cause of buffering.
1. Put the router in a central, open spot
A router hidden in a corner, cabinet, or behind an obstruction has a harder time serving rooms around the home. If possible, move it toward a central area and leave space around it. Walls and cabinets can reduce signal, so an open location is a useful first adjustment. TP-Link recommends central placement and avoiding cabinets and walls in its router antenna placement guidance.
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- Whole Home WiFi Coverage - Covers up to 6500 square feet with seamless high-performance Wi-Fi 6 and eliminate dead zones and buffering. Better than traditional WiFi booster and Range Extenders
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Choose a location that is practical as well as open: the router still needs power and any required wired connections. After moving it, check the same weak spot rather than judging only by the signal next to the router.
2. Raise the router and adjust its antennas
If the router is on the floor or low behind furniture, try putting it on a table or shelf. TP-Link gives an approximate height recommendation and suggests vertical antennas for coverage on one floor, or an angled position for a home with multiple floors. Those are general recommendations, not a guarantee: antenna design and the layout of your home affect the result. Check the manufacturer’s guidance for your model, then test the areas where you need coverage.
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3. Choose the Wi-Fi band for the device’s location
When your router offers both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi, try matching the band to the room. TP-Link suggests 5 GHz for nearby devices and 2.4 GHz for devices farther away or behind walls. The practical choice depends on distance and obstacles; do not assume one band will perform best everywhere.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteSome routers combine bands under one network name and select a band automatically. If yours does, the router or device may not offer a simple manual choice. Where separate networks or a band-selection setting are available, try the alternative for the device in the problem spot and compare results. TP-Link discusses band choice alongside other weak-signal troubleshooting in its home Wi-Fi signal guide.
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- Whole Home WiFi Coverage - Covers up to 4500 square feet with seamless high-performance Wi-Fi 6 and eliminate dead zones and buffering. Better than traditional WiFi booster and Range Extenders¹
- Connect More Devices - Deco X55(2-pack) is strong enough to connect up to 150 devices with strong and reliable Wi-Fi¹
- Our Cybersecurity Commitment - TP-Link is a signatory of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Secure-by-Design pledge. This device is designed, built, and maintained, with advanced security as a core requirement
- More Gigabit Ports - Each Deco X55 has 3 Gigabit Ethernet ports(6 in total for a 2-pack) and supports Wired Ethernet Backhaul for better speeds. Any of them can work as a Wi-Fi Router
4. Check for a router update or a crowded channel
Router firmware updates and Wi-Fi channel congestion are worth checking when placement and band choice have not resolved the problem. TP-Link recommends applying firmware updates and trying a less congested channel. The exact menus vary by router, so use its app or administration interface and follow the manufacturer’s instructions; avoid guessing at settings you do not recognize.
A channel change is a troubleshooting attempt, not a universal fix. If the connection remains slow across the home, these adjustments may not address the cause. The same TP-Link weak-signal guide covers firmware and channel checks.
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- Our Cybersecurity Commitment - TP-Link is a signatory of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Secure-by-Design pledge. This device is designed, built, and maintained, with advanced security as a core requirement.
- Unlock the Full Potential of WiFi 6 - Opening the 6 GHz band will change the game for WiFi 6. WiFi 6 brings about upgraded performance in network efficiency and capacity. Whereas the advantages of WiFi 6 are not fully realized while competing with transmissions from WiFi 5 (or other radios). The 6 GHz band is available only for WiFi 6 traffic, allowing WiFi 6 to meet its intended potential
5. Treat aluminum foil as a directional experiment
A curved sheet of foil placed behind a router has been described as a way to redirect signal toward a chosen area. Tom’s Guide reported trying this approach and recommends comparing the problem spot before and after. That account does not establish that foil will reliably improve coverage across homes, so consider it an experiment rather than a proven general fix.
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If you try it, keep the router and test location the same, change only the foil placement, and compare results. It may help in one direction while doing little for other rooms; remove it if it makes the weak spot worse.
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When a hardware fix makes more sense
One isolated weak area: consider an extender
A range extender receives the router’s Wi-Fi and repeats it, so it needs to sit where it can still receive a usable signal—not inside the dead zone itself. TP-Link recommends placing one roughly halfway between the router and the weak area. Concrete, metal, and microwave interference can affect reception, so placement matters. See TP-Link’s comparison of extenders, powerline, and mesh.
Gaps across rooms or floors: compare mesh options
For broader coverage gaps, a mesh system may be a better fit than trying to extend a single router’s signal into several areas. Compare the home’s layout and building materials, how many nodes are needed and where they can go, and the system’s backhaul: nodes may share wireless capacity, use a dedicated wireless connection, or connect by Ethernet.
Wired Ethernet backhaul requires cabling but can provide the best performance, according to ASUS Support’s whole-home mesh explanation. Mesh is not automatically necessary, and adding nodes without considering their placement and connection does not guarantee better results. TP-Link’s router-versus-mesh comparison discusses which coverage problems each approach is meant to address.
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