I have a TP-Link Deco mesh network with 5 Decos as follows:
Location Model IP Address Build Release
Main (Living Room) X60 (2.0) 192.168.68.1 20210204 50164
Apartment X60 (1.0) 192.168.68.51 20210121 54042
Bedroom X20 (1.0) 192.168.68.54 20210121 54794
Master Bedroom X60 (2.0) 192.168.68.56 20210204 50164
Office X20 (1.0) 192.168.68.55 20210121 54794
The Main Deco is connected to a Motorola Docsis 3.1 modem with a CAT-8
cable 36” long, using Xfinity 900 mbs internet service.
The Master Bedroom Deco never seems to have any problems, and it is
the one physically placed farthest away from the Main Deco.
The Apartment Deco never seems to have any problems, but the Smart TV
(connected to the Deco with a CAT-8 cable) is rarely used, so it is
hard to tell. It is at IP 192.168.68.71.
My Smart Phone works on the Deco WiFi at 192.168.68.50 with no problems.
The Bedroom Deco frequently loses connection, goes flashing red, and
usually will reconnect itself and go green again. Sometimes I have to
unplug it and plug it in again. When I do this, I have to redo the
network connection on the Smart TV and Blu-ray player plugged into it
(they are connected via Ethernet to this Deco) by using the device
settings menus. When the TV is redone, it is with 192.168.68.61. The
Blu-ray is redone as 192.168.68.67. Sometimes I am unaware that this
Deco has gone out and reconnected itself, and I have to redo the
network connections on the devices. This is an ongoing problem.
The Office Deco had the same problem. I usually had to do a hard reset
and find this Deco and add it back to the network, which usually took
multiple tries because it could not be found. I often had to
physically carry it to the Main location to do this. I swapped this
Deco with the Apartment Deco, and placed it in a slightly different
location about 3 ft. away from its former location (either location is
the closest to the Main Deco, about 10 ft. and one floor down), and
this problem no longer occurs.
Now my problems with this Deco are much more severe.
There are two computers, a multifunction printer, and three NAS
devices connected via CAT-6 cables to a gigabit switch which is
connected via CAT-8 cable to the Deco. The three NAS devices never
seem to have any problems. They are at 192.168.68.68, 192.168.68.62,
and 192.168.68.4.
Both the printer and scanner of the multifunction printer sometimes
work, sometimes do not. When it works, it is at 192.168.68.66. Right
now it is only working on a USB connection to one computer. It is
currently at 169.254.70.166. This would appear to be the problem. The
only fix I have is to reinstall the printer on two computers, which I
have had to do multiple times.
The two computers, which I will call Envy and Silver (both HP laptops
running Windows 11 home 64 bit with all upgrades installed), have
similar problems. Every time the Office Deco went out, I lost internet
connectivity on both. I tried restarting Windows multiple times,
resetting the network on both, resetting the adapters on both, running
all available troubleshooters, rolling back to restore points, doing
another hard reset on the Deco, manually assigning an IPv4 address to
the Ethernet adapters, to no avail. I even did an in-place upgrade
from the latest Windows ISO on both. Sometimes they would connect to
the internet, sometimes not (they would still work on the network,
just no internet, connecting to each other, the printer when it was
working, the NAS devices). Finally, I used the Deco app on my phone
and rebooted the network. This seemed to get everything working again.
Two hours later, for no apparent reason that I could determine, they
both lost connectivity. I tried connecting a spare laptop that I had
available to the network. It was assigned 169.254.8.44 as an IP
address, and would not connect to anything.
After fiddling for the better part of a day, Envy has been working now
at 192.168.68.65. How long this will last I don’t know. Every time I
succeeded in getting it working again, it didn't last. What is the
most perplexing of all is being away from the computer for a while,
just leaving it running, to come back only to find that it had lost
its internet connection.
I have not been able to get Silver connected again. IPconfig says it
is at 169.254.70.166. I cannot get it to connect to anything.
It seems apparent that the problem lies with Deco, and not any of the
other hardware or with Windows. Why is Deco assigning 169.254 IP
addresses? (I am allowing everything to be assigned via DHCP.)
I am at my wit’s end, and am so frustrated I want to scream.
To add- the Office Deco no longer loses connectivity by flashing red.
It stays solid green even when I cannot connect. The inability to
connect appears to completely related to the IP address assignments,
although I am willing to concede I may be wrong.
Several things have occurred in the past couple of hours. First, I
shut off my printer for an hour or so. When I turned it back on, it
had the proper IP address and both printer and scanner are working
again. I the tried a complete power off on the silver computer with
the incorrect IP address, but when powered back up the IP address was
still incorrect and the computer still will not connect to the
network. Then, for the first time in 2 days, the office Deco lost
connection and went flashing red. I waited a full five minutes, then
reset by pulling the plug and waiting for it to go green. My working
computer and printer were still good, the bad computer was still bad.
All my WiFi tests tell me my signal strength is very strong, and it is
inconceivable that this could be the problem. The Apartment Deco and
the Office Deco are both in the same room, about 12 feet apart. While
the Office Deco was down, I tried to connect the Envy working computer
via WiFi. It found the Deco network, connected to it, but I still had
no internet access. Once the Office Deco went green, the Ethernet
connection restored.
When I look in my Deco app, it tells me that the Envy computer and the
three NAS devices are connected to the Apartment Deco, when in reality
they are Ethernet connected to the Office Deco. lt tells my my phone,
which sits in a cradle about 12" from the computers, is connected to
the Office Deco, and it won't tell me which Deco the printer is
connected to (probably because it isn't actually printing anything at
the moment). The Deco App speed test tells me my DL speed is 185.8
Mbps, my upload speed is 23.2 Mbps. The WiFi interference test tells
me my signal strength is good at 37 dBm, and interference is low.
Open speed test on the Envy PC says DL speed is 155.8, UL speed is
25.2 with a Baltimore server. Ookla Speedtest, using a different
server (Washington DC Cloudflare) clocks in at 197.91 DL, 32.35 UL.
Network SpeedTest shows 227.7 DL 19.91 UL with an unknown server-
prior tests have shown DL speeds as high as 247.7.
