Problems setting up a router as a switch

[Mears]

I have a Netgear wireless router MR814 that has been giving me some headaches. This is the structure of the network as far as I can tell. There are about 11 buildings in the apt complex I'm in and each 1 or 2 shares a switch. Every bedroom in each apartment has a port that is ran from the switch. I made a crossover cable and connected it to one of the regular ports on my switch and also plugged my dekstop into the router w/ a patch cable. I booted everything up and was not able to connect to the router 192.168.0.1, but I was able to use the web with my desktop and wireless devices.

I then unplugged the uplink and left my computer as the sole connection to the router and tried again. This time I was able to connect to it via 192.168.0.1. So I changed the following settings:

Network Name
Turned off DHCP server
Enabled WEP and generated a key (didn't write it down which was a huge mistake as you'll see)
Changed admin password

I thought that turning off DHCP would fix the problem so I plugged the router back into the network and rebooted everything. However, I was still not able to access the router via 192.168.0.1. So I thought I would try to tinker with the settings a little more. I removed the uplink and rebooted everything. However, I lost my ability to connect to the router via 192.168.0.1 when my desktop was the only thing connected to it. I'm assuming something I changed (maybe DHCP?) resulted in me losing this ability. To make matters worse, I didn't write down my WEP key because I figured I would just get it after I got everything working correctly. So now I'm unable to connect to the web w/ any of my wireless devices.

So I need to know two things:

1. How can I get back to the router's config settings again when the router is not connected to the LAN?

2. How can I get my router configurated so that I can get to the config settings when it is connected the LAN? Is it possible that I may have to change the IP of the router? Here is gateway address from IPCONFIG:
10.1.0.254

 

[rw120555]

You may want to start by restoring the router to its defaults. From the manual:

To restore the factory default configuration settings without knowing the administration password
or IP address, you must use the Default Reset button on the rear panel of the router.
1. Press and hold the Default Reset button until the Test LED turns on (about 10 seconds).
2. Release the Default Reset button and wait for the router to reboot.

Also, you may want to see Jackmds's

How do I use a Wireless Cable/DSL Router as a Switch with an Access Point?

 

[Mears]

Thanks, I went through that webpage. The only thing I didn't do was this step because I didn't know what addresss to set mne to:

- Main Router?s base address is 192.168.1.1, with a DHCP server range of 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150

- Set the Cable/DSL Router to (the one you're using as an Access Point) base address to any IP address between 192.168.1.151 to 192.168.1.250