If you’re like me, you were super excited to start using your shiny new Chromecast. You got everything set up and powered it up only to find that your Chromecast has trouble even connecting to your fancy AC router and the internet. Even when it does, you are faced with endless buffering with YouTube or Netflix. Nothing seems to work right… Maybe it’s even getting worse!
Well have no fear! There is a solution. Whether you are getting the “Chromecast connected to wi-fi, but can’t access the internet” error, you can’t even connect to the router, or it just keeps buffering, if you have an AC router, these steps may be worth trying. In my case, I have a brand new Linksys WRT1900AC router positioned literally inches from my Chromecast. It played nice with every device on the whole network, expect my Chromecast. I actually purchased two Chromecasts in a recent deal, one for each TV, and both had the exact same problems.
So what’s the solution?
The secret is to set the proper wireless band to only use wireless B and G. If your router is dual-band like mine, you need to know that the Chromecast is only going to attempt to connect to the 2.4ghz band. It may even be necessary to give the 2.4 and 5ghz bands different names, to prevent the Chromecast from connecting to the wrong one.
Now, on your 2.4gz band, set it to only use wireless B and G. You may be able to get away with also using N, but in my case, even allowing N caused it to stop working.
Here are what the correct settings looked like for my Linksys router:
I haven’t been able to test this on any other routers, but I suspect it may work on others. A friend has a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900, so I may try it on that one and see if it has the same results.
So why does this work? I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard that Chromecasts don’t understand how to interact with some of the newer routers. By limiting the wireless band used by the device to just wireless B and G, we are reducing any interference caused by the newer technologies. In theory it should work just fine with wireless N, but at least in my case, that’s just not true in practice.
Let me know in the comments if this worked for you! I’d like to get more information and see if this is a broader problem.
2 Comments on “Getting Chromecast to Work on AC Routers”
Yep sorted the issues with a chromecast 1 and linksys wrt1900acs running native vendor firmware. Had me puzzled as it did actually work for a whole tv episode but then suddenly failed to find the network on most occasions and could not connect when it could see the network.
Any idea if it would work better with the openwrt firmware?
Hi it’s taken me months to get to your site and understand fully what’s going on with my Chromecast and iPhone disconnecting all the time. I’ve finally worked out its poor wifi signal in my lounge. I thought it was my Chromecast being the problem and then my phone but after taking a deeper look I see I have one bar on my iPhone and it keeps disconnecting. poor wifi. We are looking at getting a wi fi extender so that should fix the issues I’m having. Thanks for your tips