Lol you sound just like my coworker!

Of course it’s a rip off but she could have gotten any schmuck from Craigslist to do it for like $100 + materials lol. I mean if it’s drop ceiling, shit I’d do that for $200

They said drop ceiling in basement and it was first floor. So basically drilling up through the floor into the wall in first floor. Super easy

It doesn’t even matter. I have 400 Mbps and a 10 GB download can take over an hour. Having 1 gig won’t change that. In theory that download should take 25 seconds lol.

Are your WiFi names split? 2.4 and 5? Or is it a dual band? Sounds like you may be getting kicked to the 2.4 when you go upstairs if it’s a dual band network. Usually 5ghz won’t drop that low. Like it would lose connection before it dropped to 20mbps.

Is the WiFi good on the 2nd floor right above the router? Or everywhere on the 2nd floor is somehow bad? I have to imagine it’s good above the router

Without knowing how many sq feet your house is or where the rooms are, the simplest way to do it is basically have the modem/router in one end of the 1st floor and have another AP on the 2nd floor but the opposite side. That way that modem/router can cover one half of the house (both floors) and the AP can cover the other half (both floors).

This is a general statement since I don’t know the sq footage and layout of your house. But yes you would put a switch in the media panel and feed Ethernet from the modem/router back to the media panel, plug that line into the switch and then whatever other line where you will put the AP

I have a single Deco XE75. You could get the 2 pack and do exactly as I said above and it should be night and day different. You don’t have to get the same one as me obviously. There are plenty of 2 packs and 3 packs out there.

You’re really not going to be able to do anything with this that will help with running new wiring. Very slim chance that is not stapled down somewhere inside the wall. Where are you trying to run the Ethernet to in relation to this jack??