> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.darrenma.eu/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The first time I changed my home network, I took down the internet - URL: https://www.darrenma.eu/the-first-time-i-changed-my-home-network-i-took-down-the-internet/ - Published: 2026-09-24T06:55:03.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-24T06:55:02.000Z - Description: My ISP router kept slowing down the house. Replacing it with a second-hand Xiaomi and OpenWrt gave me a more stable network, after one stressful evening offline. - Author: Darren Ma - Tags: Homelab The network was down. Family members were waiting to send emails and print documents. My kid was shouting that YouTube was not working on the TV or iPad. A drop of sweat fell across my brow. I had just read through a lot of instructions and put OpenWrt firmware onto a Xiaomi router. But the network settings were not right yet. This was the first time I had changed the home network properly. I knew there would be downtime. I had not really understood what it feels like to take the internet away from an entire house. ## The ISP router had been annoying me for years The original router came from TIM, my ISP, around 2020\. It connected to the strange egg-shaped antenna used for the fixed-wireless connection where I live in a smaller town in Italy. I can confidently say the connection was underwhelming, and so was the router. It ran proprietary firmware, I could not put anything else on it, and I could not even update it myself. Connections did not drop every day, but it was not rare either. Sometimes the internet would slow down to a snail's pace, then suddenly work again after a restart. Restarting the router became such a normal part of life that even my non-technical mother knew to do it. There was no single disaster that made me decide to replace it. Things worked, but not well. I had no control over the router, so there was not much I could do when they didn't. ## I staged a coup in two phases I did not want to replace the internet connection immediately. My first move was to put another router behind the TIM one and make it the router for the home network. The TIM box could provide the internet connection, but the devices in the house would no longer depend on it for Wi-Fi and local networking. I had wanted to do this for years. I was also thinking ahead. If I changed internet provider later, I wanted to be able to do that without rebuilding the whole home network at the same time. If I am honest, I chose the Xiaomi AX3200 because it was the cheapest router I could find on Vinted that I could put OpenWrt onto. I had gone through a long list of options, mostly because prices were much higher than I expected. It also had Wi-Fi 6 and looked like it would give me better range, but OpenWrt support was the important part. I wanted a router I could update and control myself. ## Flashing it was more stressful than I expected There was one catch. The international RB01 version of the Xiaomi AX3200 had a more involved OpenWrt process than other versions of the router. I remember reading model numbers, firmware versions, downgrade instructions, and hoping I had ordered the right thing. The method I found used a community Python tool to get access to the router before installing OpenWrt. It seemed reasonable after reading the documentation, but I was still about to run a script from the internet against my new router. I ran the script through ChatGPT for some peace of mind, then went for it. Luckily, that part worked first time. Now I had a second router. So what? I set up a separate private network behind the TIM router. The TIM router became the internet gateway, while the Xiaomi handled the home network. I disabled the Wi-Fi on the TIM router and moved the main devices across to the Xiaomi. That was the point when the rest of the household realised there was construction happening. I had mentioned there could be downtime, but when the internet is off it feels like the house is staring at you and counting every second. Most things came back quickly. The HP Deskjet printers, as usual, required their own special battle. But eventually the main devices were connected and the internet worked again. There was no real recovery plan. If it had not worked, I would have needed to put everyone back on the TIM router and try again another day. Luckily, it did not get there. ## Once it worked, everyone noticed The home network was noticeably more stable, and the furthest room had better Wi-Fi range. We no longer needed to restart the router itself. The TIM connection was still not perfect. Every now and again I needed to restart the antenna plugged into the TIM router. But that was a different problem. The new router had at least stopped being another source of trouble in the house. The moment it felt worth it for me was logging into the OpenWrt admin interface and seeing how many options I now had. I knew a future homelab would use some of them. That was already enough. The next day I set up ad blocking and bandwidth reports. We paid TIM each month for an "unlimited" connection, but the reports showed that the connection would slow after roughly 800 to 900 GB of usage. It was never a fixed number. When I called TIM about it, they were vague too. That was one of the things that eventually pushed me to replace the connection with Starlink. ## The bit that mattered later Local DNS names came later, once I was properly deploying homelab services such as Immich. But from the start, I was in control of the router. I could update it and decide which useful things to add next. When I switched the internet connection to Starlink about a year later, it was laughably easy because the home network was already in place. It was also only then that the restart routine disappeared completely. The router was not the homelab itself, but it became the backbone for it. The SER5 came next, followed by Immich, Jellyfin, and the rest. ## What I would do differently I would exaggerate the likely downtime to the family and have a mobile-hotspot backup plan ready. I started this at about 7pm, right in the middle of family home time. If I did it again, I would plan it for when everyone was out or asleep. Still, I am glad I did it. The router fixed some annoying problems immediately and gave me a part of the home setup that felt like mine. ## Related posts - [The two reasons I built a homelab](https://www.darrenma.eu/the-two-reasons-i-built-a-homelab/)