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Best way to configure parents network...

S

scootermaster

Platinum Member
So my 'rents have this ridiculous disaster of a network. A bunch of misconfigured APs, routers, multiple SSIDs, you name it.

Here's the skinny:
1. The house is somewhat "wired" (I should know, I'm the one who got in the crawl space and ran the cable). There are five or six drops in various rooms that go to one homerun point.

2. The cable modem and an N router live there, amongst other hubs and whatnot.

3. The house is sprawling and needs APs/repeaters. There's at least 2 of these. At least one is G but no big whoop there (see below RE speed)

4. No idea if the router is [simul] dual-band. Can check in a bit.

So, just curious about how to [re] set this up. Obviously repeater will work, but would AP be "faster" since they could theoretically be wired into the main router? Overall speed isn't a huge issue -- it's not like they're sending multiple HD streams to and fro. They do have an obscene number of devices (upwards of 25 maybe?) Something that works across the whole house without hiccups is the goal.

If we have to buy something that's fine but mostly I'm looking for suggestions as to how to configure those APs. Repeater mode? AP mode? Bridge mode connected to a switch? Throw them away join a commune?

Thanks for the help!
 
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scootermaster said:
So my 'rents have this ridiculous disaster of a network. A bunch of misconfigured APs, routers, multiple SSIDs, you name it.

Here's the skinny:
1. The house is somewhat "wired" (I should know, I'm the one who got in the crawl space and ran the cable). There are five or six drops in various rooms that go to one homerun point.

2. The cable modem and an N router live there, amongst other hubs and whatnot.

3. The house is sprawling and needs APs/repeaters. There's at least 2 of these. At least one is G but no big whoop there (see below RE speed)

4. No idea if the router is [simul] dual-band. Can check in a bit.

So, just curious about how to [re] set this up. Obviously repeater will work, but would AP be "faster" since they could theoretically be wired into the main router? Overall speed isn't a huge issue -- it's not like they're sending multiple HD streams to and fro. They do have an obscene number of devices (upwards of 25 maybe?) Something that works across the whole house without hiccups is the goal.

If we have to buy something that's fine but mostly I'm looking for suggestions as to how to configure those APs. Repeater mode? AP mode? Bridge mode connected to a switch? Throw them away join a commune?

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

Repeater wouldnt make sense unless distance is an issue. AP mode is fine if each device can handle the appropriate number of hosts. Bridge mode is a good idea, you can have multiple AP's connected to seperate Vlans on a single switch and configure everything through there to amke your life easier later on.
 
How many floors?

First thought:
Central AP, 2 or 3 repeaters in WDS mode. You won't notice any change in speed and your parents will be fine with it. DD-WRT obviously. Easiest way as you'll have one SSID and only 1 central point with a switch.
 
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One floor, but the two halves of the house are very far apart. So one half is covered by the router, the only question is how to set up the APs. Distance IS an issue, which is why I thought repeater mode might be simplest. The only complication is that, as I mentioned, the APs can theoretically be wired to the main router.
 
If you have the ability to set up the routers in various places as APs, and hardwire them to a central router, then do that. (I would add, set up the APs with non-overlapping channels and the same SSID to facilitate roaming, while not overloading any single channel.)


If it is not possible to wire them all up, then look into WDS mode on DD-WRT, and get some routers that can run DD-WRT.
 
A basic topology could be this:


Modem - Wired router - access points

Configure the router as required, and use access points in various areas of the house. You may have to run cables, say Cat 6s, but this way you would have just one subnet without multiple SSIDs.
 
Interesting that there was a number of different responses.

I'm not sure what the model number of the router is, but the APs are actual dedicated APs. Linksys WAP54s and the like.

So, I think the only downside of wiring the APs to from the drops to the central router is then losing that drop for something wired. But a switch'll fix that, if needed (for example, there's a drop by the main media cabinet, which obviously has like 4 different things that could use access). So I'll try and find unused drops throughout the house and/or buy more switches.

I haven't tried messing with it yet, but I was mainly just wondering if this (wired AP mode) would complicate things more than just plugging the APs in to the wall (and not the network) and setting them to repeater mode.

Something needs to be done though...this thing is such a mess. And as I'm sitting here typing this, I keep dropping connection, but not from interference (full bars). It just...dies. And then I have to reconnect. It's really annoying. I wonder if that's from too many clients, or channel contention, or some other [software?] misconfiguration.
 
Unless you planned to rewire the entire house, I think I would make a go at using a powerline type system, while not as good as wire they are generally a tier above as far as connectivity and reliablity compared to wifi (or wireless just hates me at times)
 
I only recommended pure repeater mode as its sometimes a bit dicy (and quote/unquote "unsupported") to attempt seamless roaming on consumer grade equipment. Diff wireless channels/same ssid "mostly" works but its been known to do odd things (just like you are experincing - the network just dies). With a number of repeaters running you are actually only associating with the central AP ( a single device) and the others will simply get the packets there.

Sounds like you ought to do a wireless survey first and locate the APs in the most advantageous areas.
 
Got it set up. Flashed the WAP54gs to newest firmware, tried to flash the WRT300n v1, but Cisco doesn't support it anymore, used DD-WRT instead, replaced shitty WEP with WPA2 Personal, killed Mac Filtering, moved them all to the same SSID, made one AP channel 1, the router channel 6 and the other AP channel 12. Everything works like it should.

It's crazy that right as the network went back up, 17 clients immediately connected. I think I counted something like 30ish possible clients in the house with my family here. I tried to wire as many of those as possible.

But everything works great. I even used AirPrint with my mom's printer. That was pretty cool. But both the houses wireless printers work fine. Showed my parents how to use the DNLA setup on their Onkyo receiver to stream stuff off their sundry computers, etc etc.

They're much, much happier.

Thanks for the help!
 
Why not use a N router? The performance will be much better especially with all those devices connected as the same time.
 
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