AWFUL signal strength, wired/wireless

[kamikaze33]

Hey guys
So my home network is just being a *censored* nightmare lately. My entire family is riding my a$$ about fixing it and noone knows anything about technology so explaining things to them is bringing me to my witts end.
Where to start?

1)my current connection speed BLOWS. my ISP is Shaw Communications, and we are SUPPOSED to have among their top tier of internet packages. I am trying to download some Bloomberg software currently, and i cant because the downloads die after about 0.5 seconds (they get caught up at like 0.4MB). I did a speedtest (vie speedtest.net) and its doing some weird stuff.
For starters, when it runs the 'download speed' test, it just fails miserably. The first time i did it, it topped out around 99BPS, but then slowly dropped off by 0.01BPS per second continually until i got pissed and stopped it. It never completed the assessment. The second time, it topped out at around 5 (FIVE!?)BPS, and did the same thing
2)our modem is a Cisco DPC3825 (wifi disabled), hooked up to a D-Link DIR835 router. My brother has an ASUS RT-N53 router in his room that i tried to set up in "repeater node" because i am in the basement with the router/modem and the signal strength on the main floor (his room) sucks.
            Side Note: My dad talked to shaw yesterday and they said if my brother has aquariums in his room (he has two massive ones) that could affect wifi signal strength as well.
3)our wifi signal strength sucks in general. When i tried to set up the ASUS in repeater mode, all it did was make a second network with a '-2.4' suffix, and the signal strength still sucks.
4)There are 3 hardlines running to my dads office, my desktop and my ps4 from the MODEM, and another 3 hardlines running up to my brother's room (and the ASUS router) from the D-Link router.
5)There is a LOT of devices using our wifi network in the house;
-5 smart phones
-2 smart tvs
-2 printers
-3-5 laptops/desktop computers depending on who is home
-3 tablets
-3 SONOS HIFI speaker systems

Please, for the love of god, someone help my nuke this network and set it up from scratch? Nothing seems to be compatible, the signal strength sucks all around, hardlined or wired, which SHOULD NOT given my dad pays for one of the higher end packages.

[jason2074]

Did you check or tried directly with the modem first then work all the way to the extended router? Run a speedtest directly connnected to the modem and see if its not the problem.

[Geek-9pm]

Seriously think about another Internet provider.
Yes, you do have a lot of stuff connected, but seldom do you have it all working. With a bandwidth (speed) of near 25 mega bits per second you can be streaming video on two devices and surfing on others. A good ISP should give you near 25 mega bits per second.
From my own experience the wireless repeater thing is not a good idea. Instead, you do it like this:
Run an Ethernet cable from the modem to a wireless router. That is the main router. Position it for the beset wireless results in part of the house. The use a Ethernet cable to run to another router in the far part of the house. If needed, run the cable outside than b and  back in to avoid running over the walls.  The second router can do wireless on another channel. Favored channels are 1, 6 and 11. But other combinations are alright. Just not two channels very close. Make them about 4 or 5 numbers apart. Like 2 and  7 or maybe  5 and 9. But don't expect t  highest data rates. There is some slight interference when two wireless devices things cover the same area.
Aquarium? Fish sorties?  Hardly!
Cordless phone, when in use may cause some interference at close range.
Let us know what you find. I think you have to start with the ISP company.

[kamikaze33]

unfortunately my dad is the one who pays the bills and hes too stubborn to ditch shaw (FML). I think it is a problem with the modem though. It is just plain screwy:
my dad has an ethernet cable running to his office hooked into the modem. that works fine.
My desktop is hooked in (now) and it doesnt work. My computer recognizes that its plugged in and it spends forever in the "identifying" stage until it times out.
The Dlink router is hooked into the modem, and the modem is flashing orange for the port that the router is hooked into, however the router seems to be working ok (is broadcasting a wifi signal, though weakly) and i am able to hook my desktop into the router port and it works (Speedtest results for that setup: 106.58Mbps/download, 5.48Mbps/upload).
NOTE: the second router IS hooked up via ethernet to the first router. we ran a cable all through the house. Should i switch that router to the modem as well, and set up a second network?

[Geek-9pm]

(dictation )
All right, let's try to fix this problem with the information you have already provided. Apparently your modem also has a four port Ethernet switch. Is that correct? If so, that means that the modem is taking charge of the DHCP and the second device, your D–Link router, needs to be properly configured to get things working right. One option is to plug the output of the modem into the WAN jack of your D-Link router. That can work if the second device is on a different subnet.
If both devices, the router and the modem, are on the same subnet, only one could manage the DHCP. Also, the modem and the router must have separate static IP addresses.
For example:
modem IP=192.168.1.1
router IP=192.168.1.2
in that case, both devices are in the subnet, whose base address is 192.168.1.0
of course, there are other possibilities. There are wide variations in the base address, but most commonly it's at the bottom in of the available addresses used for LA N.
What makes this kind of stuff annoying is when you turn off the DHCP. With it off, you could have a hard time making changes or settings to either the modem or the router. Hopefully that will not happen if things are done in the right order. Or just to not turn off DHCP, unless it is required.
Sorry I'm not able to give you a complete tutorial on how to type II routers together in the same network. There are lots of details that are difficult to cover for every situation. Most of the time it's not too hard, but if you don't get it right. The performance is either nonexistent or very very poor.
Here is a link for general information about how to put him him router behind the modem that manages DHCP.
Reference:

How to Connect Two Routers

[kamikaze33]

ya i ended up throwing in the towel haha. I called shaw and had them toy with the modem so that it is now using its internal router, i unplugged both of the other routers, and am waiting on an appointment with the geek squad to come and set it all up for me. thanks for everyones input though! I just dont have the know-how for this kind of task and will probably only make things worse