Best way to use 2 routers plus powerline together?

[slackerinabox]

Here's the network set up as is:

2nd floor (home office): apple airport extreme hooked up directly to cable modem. Powerline networking adapter

1st floor: powerline network hooked up to apple tv/tivo/etc.

The problem is that wifi on the 1st floor is mediocre at best. I have quite a few low-to-mid end 802.11n routers lying around (from belkin, linksys, and a generic z-something that can be used as a wireless game adapter or a repeater).

What's the best way to use what I have to extended the network downstairs. Just hooking up a wireless router to my powerline network downstairs works, but screws up network shared drives for some reason.

Solution one: hooked up wifi router to powerline
solution two: use the game adapter in repeater mode
Solution three: ?

Which is my best option? Thanks!

 

[dclive]

What's the best way to use what I have to extended the network downstairs. Just hooking up a wireless router to my powerline network downstairs works, but screws up network shared drives for some reason.

Solution one: hooked up wifi router to powerline
solution two: use the game adapter in repeater mode
Solution thee: ?

Which is my best option? Thanks!

Don't hook it up as a router, hook it up as a dumb hub.

Turn off DHCP from the "new" router, and ignore the WAN port on it; plug it into your powerline network downstairs using one of the 3-4 LAN ports on it, and then set up Wireless N on it. Have your Wireless N clients connect to it directly.

I'm surprised your Apple router isn't able to supply a signal suitable for Wireless N downstairs. Have you tried calling Apple? Their AE products are very, very good.

 

[slackerinabox]

Don't hook it up as a router, hook it up as a dumb hub.

Turn off DHCP from the "new" router, and ignore the WAN port on it; plug it into your powerline network downstairs using one of the 3-4 LAN ports on it, and then set up Wireless N on it. Have your Wireless N clients connect to it directly.

I'm surprised your Apple router isn't able to supply a signal suitable for Wireless N downstairs. Have you tried calling Apple? Their AE products are very, very good.

Thanks! I knew there was something I was doing wrong. The AE works great for internet access but file transers (i.e. watching SD xvids on my laptop from the media server upstairs) choke more often then they should. I'm able to stream 720p on the same floor as the router. I may be positioning the router in a weird place - the room is also our guest bedroom so the extreme is tucked away under a desk, if that makes a difference.

 

[dclive]

the room is also our guest bedroom so the extreme is tucked away under a desk, if that makes a difference.

It certainly does! What happens if you place it high and off the ground (like, say, an antenna tower)?

Are you connecting to it with wireless N? 2.4 or 5 ghz band?

 

[slackerinabox]

It certainly does! What happens if you place it high and off the ground (like, say, an antenna tower)?

Are you connecting to it with wireless N? 2.4 or 5 ghz band?

That would have been a sensible thing to try, wouldn't it? I moved it from the living room (first floor) to upstairs right before family visited for Easter and didn't have time to try different positions. Didn't think there was a problem because I had full bars downstairs, and web browsing's great as is.

I'll def. try to move it when they leave. I'm connected via wireless N on a macbook air, never figured out how to tell if it's a 2.4 or 5 gh connection (but my router is set up for both with seamless switching - should i change that setting to having two sep. SSDs, one for 2.4 and one for 5? didn't think it make a difference)

 

[dclive]

That would have been a sensible thing to try, wouldn't it? I moved it from the living room (first floor) to upstairs right before family visited for Easter and didn't have time to try different positions. Didn't think there was a problem because I had full bars downstairs, and web browsing's great as is.

I'll def. try to move it when they leave. I'm connected via wireless N on a macbook air, never figured out how to tell if it's a 2.4 or 5 gh connection (but my router is set up for both with seamless switching - should i change that setting to having two sep. SSDs, one for 2.4 and one for 5? didn't think it make a difference)

Option-click on the wireless icon on your menubar and write down what you see.

You should have 2 SSIDs - one for 2.4 and one for 5 - and experiment with speeds on both.

 

[slackerinabox]

Option-click on the wireless icon on your menubar and write down what you see.

You should have 2 SSIDs - one for 2.4 and one for 5 - and experiment with speeds on both.

Awesome, thanks so much for the advice! Maybe I can somehow manage to get a signal in my basement using your advice

 

[JoeMcJoe]

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...best-way-to-get-whole-house-wireless-coverage

Has handy info in this article. I use powerline networking to extend wifi to two building in this manner, works great.

 

[Renegade_09]

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...best-way-to-get-whole-house-wireless-coverage

Has handy info in this article. I use powerline networking to extend wifi to two building in this manner, works great.

I also want to do this setup but can't seem to get it working. Is it possible to have the secondary router connected via powerline to connect wireless and ethernet ports.

I want to extend my wireless to the basement and use the router to connect my Xbox 360, WDTV Live, and PS3 to the router to have a staple connection while having that router extending the wireless also to near by laptops. Is this even possible?

 

[dclive]

Of course - just plug in a cable from the primary router to the powerline bridge and then to the powerline bridge in the basement and then from there to the secondary router's LAN (not WAN!) port, plug all your XBOX/etc. into the other LAN (not WAN!) ports, disable DHCP on the secondary router, and you're all set.

 

[Renegade_09]

thanks for the quick reply. Just another question. Do I have to setup the wireless ssid on the secondary router before disabling the DHCP for the laptops to connect in the basement? If so, should I be using the same SSID as the main router or something different?

 

[dclive]

Order doesn't really matter much, whatever you prefer. Just set your IP address of the basement router to something you can reach on your main network.

And by disable DHCP, I mean disable it on the basement router itself, so it no longer offers DHCP leases to clients.

 

[Renegade_09]

Just set your IP address of the basement router to something you can reach on your main network.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. My main router ip address is 192.168.1.1, so I should be setting my secondary router to 192.168.1.2?

 

[dclive]

Yep.

 

[Renegade_09]

Yep.

alright thanks. I'm going to test it out right now

 

[Renegade_09]

ok before disabling the DCHP I set the wireless SSID on the secondary router to something different. My SSID from the main router is Home and I set the secondary router's SSID to Home2. I tried connecting to it but it seems like it's not even broadcasting. Should I be setting the SSID for the secondary router to the same SSID as the main router?

edit: Nevermind SSID Home2 is working now

 

[Renegade_09]

Say I use the same SSID for both routers. Which router would my wireless laptop connect to? The one with the best signal or is it just random?

 

[Renegade_09]

Tried connecting to Home2 today and couldn't get it to connect for some reason. Sometimes I can connect and sometimes I can't. I'm also 5 ft from the secondary router. Not sure what's wrong.

 

[dclive]

Tried connecting to Home2 today and couldn't get it to connect for some reason. Sometimes I can connect and sometimes I can't. I'm also 5 ft from the secondary router. Not sure what's wrong.

By "connect" what do you mean? You can see the SSID and connect to the SSID's network, but can't get an IP address?

 

[Renegade_09]

I can see the SSID setup with the secondary router (Home2) but Win7 says it couldn't connect. Doesn't really say anything else. Tried doing a diagnostics but came up with nothing still.

edit: I think it might be the laptop because I tried connecting to Home2 with my iPhone and it connected fine. Browsing Anandtech with tapatalk app right now.

 

[SoCalScott]

Did you ever find a solution to this, Renegarde_09?

 

[Renegade_09]

yeah it's working fine now.

 

[SoCalScott]

How did you get it to work? Can you walk me through it...?

Thanks.

 

[Renegade_09]

all the steps is basically posted above. What are you having problems with?

 

[SoCalScott]

Trying to get this configuration working:

Buffalo router (DD-WRT)-->Netgear Powerline-->Netgear Powerline-->Netgear router (DD-WRT)

I've tried everything I can think of, but I can't it to work. I can plug a computer directly into the second Powerline adapter, and it works fine, but when I plug the Netgear router in, the up/down speeds are virtually useless (like worse than dial-up). I've disabled DHCP on the Netgear router....no joy!

Any help or insight you can offer would be appreciated.