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suikoden

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Hi suikoden!

If you say the signal mostly drops at night, I can think of two possible reasons? Either - interference from too many devices in the house, or a bandwidth problem - too many people (both in your house and around your area) trying to use your internet service provider.

What internet service provider are you with? I used to be with Starhub (at my parents' place) until last year, and I would experience a drop in bandwidth and latency at night which was VERY noticeable when the hubbs played online games or when I streamed videos.

I made the switch to MyRepublic for my new house, and I've always been at full reception. With the homeplug system there is no dropped signal anywhere in the house. I'm not sure if its:

a. because of the homeplug system

b. because we paid more to get the most expensive router (about $200 more), with the largest signal range. (MyRepublic offers three router choices, we took the mostest maximumest one)

c. because not that many people use MyRepublic

There is only one SMALL issue though, my "main/big" homeplug is in the living room (nearest to house entrance), and my "small" homeplug is in the MBR (furthest from house entrance). There is a slight overlap of signals - and may require manually selecting the correct/closer SSID.

E.g. If I start using WiFi in the living room, and then I walk towards the MBR, at the bedroom 2 (next to MBR), I will need to manually select the "small" homeplug SSID. Otherwise, my iPhone continues to try to connect to the "big" plug, and there is a large signal drop.

I try to illustrate with a simple diagram:

Entrance to House

Living Room (Main homeplug and router are here)

|

Study (Still maximum signal from router, almost no signal from small plug) - need to select SSID of router

|

Bedroom 1 (Almost no signal from router, but maximum signal from small plug) - need to manually select SSID of small plug

|

MBR (Small homeplug is here, no signal from router)

Lastly, you asked about our homeplug right? I threw away the box already, so I can't see the model, but when I went to buy at Challenger, I think there was only brand, with different prices and speeds. I also just took the most expensive one. Internet is my life haha.

The front of the plug says "Aztec brand, Homeplug AV, 500Mbps". Don't know if it will help. Haha.

Ya man! Eubiq is awesome! I would recommend it reaaaallly strongly on my own t-blog, but the problem is the expense, so I rather let people find it and decide on it themselves.

Haha. Ok, I don't want to hijack your t-blog. Happy CNY and good luck with meeting the contractors/IDs! It can be quite tiring towards the end, but every meeting you go for could teach you something - and it might mean thousands of dollars saved!

Hi Jez2014! Happy new year to u!

Thanks for your valuable tips. just wana check which package did u get from MyRepublic? How's the service like too?

Was thinking of getting either MyRepublic or ViewQwest at our new house. And I agree that internet is our lives!! Haha I simply can't live without internet. Play games, stream or download videos, reading up on blogs n etc~~

Haha okay I will go and check up Challenger. 1 last question. Do u mind taking a pic of ur router too? :)

Thanks.

 

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Hehe.. ok, do you mean

a) $15k for all other things EXCEPT carpentry; or

b) $15k for ALL things including carpentry?

Huge difference wor...

As you may already know, carpentry alone makes up a huge chunk of any renovation budget. A full everything is going to cost you over $10k liao. Assuming you need 5 main wardrobes/cabinets/console, that's already $7k. Then the small things like side cabinets la, shoe cabinet la, bathroom cabinet la, shelves etc maybe another $2k. And the killer item, i.e. kitchen cabinets from my surveys would cost $3-6k (indeed the standard deviation amongst companies is high! if you are lucky you can find the lower end...but if not, you may just end up with the median).

So that leaves very little from your $15k budget to get furniture... :( Unless you don't mind buying those really entry-level stuff like from 42 or non-branded places. They are ok for a couple of years, but not for like 10yrs la.

Anyway. Just a little tip on kitchen cabinet... I found that IKEA actually has very extremely affordable options if you're looking for just simple stuff. I'm not even talking about their customised cabinets and tabletops (never tried), but just those normal off the rack kind. I saw some serious quality wooden countertop tables for like $200+! And I know it's good quality because I have this silly habit of banging on the IKEA things when I'm looking at them. Like, banging hard with my fists. If it sounds hollow and feels flimsy, I move on until I find a solid one.. :P So there are some that really pass the banging test.

Having said that, who am I to advise you on budget...! When I've just spent over $8k on one stupid toilet... :(

Happy renovating!

Hi XGBT! Happy new year to u!

Hmms actually in my very first post.. I have mentioned it's 15k purely on renovation excluding furniture and electronic appliances. We are budgeting another est $18k for our furniture and electronic appliances. Do u think it's sufficient to cover the carpentry works that I want?

Yesterday went to Ikea with Hubby.. and I was also knocking on every wooden thing that I saw.. same same as u Hahahas.. But I was knocking on every bookshelf haha..

How did u spend $8 on a toilet? Urs BTO or revamp of toilet?

 

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Bro, which wooden countertop are you referring to?

Ooops sorry, my mistake.

The $200+ I was thinking of is actually this one:

frAWhzK.jpg

It's an island kind of table, very solid and a decent size but I guess not like a traditional kitchen cabinet size.

But the actual one I meant for a decent kitchen counter is this at $492:

04tATaV.jpg

If I recall correctly, it was about maybe 6-7feet long. If you get 2 of these, it would be quite long and look like a traditional countertop.

I think la... heh. Not sure.

Edited by X6GT
 

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Hi XGBT! Happy new year to u!

Hmms actually in my very first post.. I have mentioned it's 15k purely on renovation excluding furniture and electronic appliances. We are budgeting another est $18k for our furniture and electronic appliances. Do u think it's sufficient to cover the carpentry works that I want?

Yesterday went to Ikea with Hubby.. and I was also knocking on every wooden thing that I saw.. same same as u Hahahas.. But I was knocking on every bookshelf haha..

How did u spend $8 on a toilet? Urs BTO or revamp of toilet?

Hi suikoden, Happy New Yr to you too!

Waaah...why you change my name become like LGBT like that... :( Eeee.. :blink:

Anyway, hmm in that case, yes I think $15k should be just about enough to cover carpentry. But if you're a young family that doesn't have too many things (junk like a thousand plates from the 1980s) like older families do, perhaps you can do very basic stuff for the first 5yrs of your marriage. Eg, instead of making cabinets with 20 doors, perhaps make cabinets with just 10 doors. Not only will this give your home a bigger feel, but also you won't be tempted to buy unnecessary things all the time because you're thinking "Oh I have the space to keep them if I don't need them..."(in the first place, why waste money to buy them if you don't need them?). A lot of us fall into that trap, myself included. Now, if we were to live in a 1-room apartment, we would think twice about buying unnecessary things because we have nowhere to keep...right? The money is better put to use in investments while we're still young, like Li Ka-Shing says :yeah:

Oh and...duno if it suits your taste, but I've posted pics of the IKEA countertop you may want to consider as a cheaper alternative haha. I think for people who don't cook much and don't have a lot of kitchen junk, it seems perfectly fine..

Haha, yes, yes you should bang and try out the IKEA things first before you buy! Especially bookshelf and those things that you put heavy stuff. Some of the stuff is really crap and/or overpriced and will sag or warp with time under the weight of those heavy things, but the rare few made of solid wood are good to buy!

 

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Hi XGBT! Happy new year to u!

Hmms actually in my very first post.. I have mentioned it's 15k purely on renovation excluding furniture and electronic appliances. We are budgeting another est $18k for our furniture and electronic appliances. Do u think it's sufficient to cover the carpentry works that I want?

Yesterday went to Ikea with Hubby.. and I was also knocking on every wooden thing that I saw.. same same as u Hahahas.. But I was knocking on every bookshelf haha..

How did u spend $8 on a toilet? Urs BTO or revamp of toilet?

How did I spend $8k on a toopid toilet?

You may want to read my t-blog here: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/topic/69575-chronicles-of-a-simple-bathroom-without-gold-taps/

Perhaps you can avoid the same mistakes I made, sigh. $8k...I still can't get over it. Xin tong ah... :dunno:

It's a revamp of an old toilet (15yrs old). But the transformation is amazing, it's so lovely now that I wanna sleep in it! lolz

 

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Hi suikoden,

Sorry for the late reply, I saw you ask about our router before CNY, then CNY came and things got busy and forgot all about it haha. Our router is the ASUS RT-AC8U. If you apply for MyRepublic online, they will offer you three routers. This is the most expensive one.

I think I picked the 200MBPS plan because they allow you to try for two months free. The service is excellent. The person was on time and efficient. So far no problems with the signal at home.

I'm not sure if you should use ViewQwest, yesterday CNA issued a report on ViewQwest vulnerabilities. You can read the report here.

(Edit: I am really bad with technological stuffs, so I don't understand the article fully. But you should read it yourself to see if you get it.)

Edited by jez2014
 

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for networking, i do not reco homeplugs for this, it s not healthy, what i would reco is do lan coversion for ur home, ont to be place in the electrical board, ask for a single unit modem/router from e isp that you sign up for, get an additional router to act as an access point. to be placed at the center of the house so u get max coverage w no dead spot, i would reco the asus ac66u or ac68u model. i ve been doing networking for about 7 yrs and my setup for my house in the same as i reco to u.

 

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