So, I’m a mechanical engineer that builds my own rigs to support my flight simulation habit but I’m a noob at networking, and much of its associated vernacular. As such, I’m finding this learning process fascinating… Thanks to all for the help which is very much appreciated.
“It's impossible your AT&T IP address ends with 256, it's an invalid address. What you saw probably was 192.168.1.1/256, that means your LAN can have up to 256 IP addresses.”
Interesting… I’ll take another look to verify.
That's correct. Take the common home network of 192.168.1.x / 255.255.255.0
- It's all based on the subnet mask.
- In this example, the first 3 octets, 192.168.1 is the network address.
- The subnet 255.255.255.0 tells us that all 8 bits in the subnet are flipped "1" for the first 3 octets, so that leaves the last octet for a mix of 0's and 1's for our host addresses.
- Here's the catch, the host address cannot be all 0's or all 1's. So the last octet can provide 0-255 addresses (2^8), but the first and last address aren't valid since it's all 0's or all 1's, leaving you with .1-.254 as valid.
maybe this will help:
https://networklessons.com/subnetting/subnetting-in-binary
“One router put in AP mode is only one WAP, not two WAPs just because it has 2.4G & 5G frequencies.
You said you have 4 WAPs from 2 routers probably mean you have 4 SSIDs/2 from each routers?”
I’ve been wondering about the vernacular here… The latter is what I have: 2 physical routers, each capable of distributing data signals across the 2.4GHz and 5Ghz bandwidths. I can see 4 WiFi Networks (SSIDS?) in the lower right corner of the taskbar where one chooses which WiFi connection to connect with. From my limited POV, it made sense to call each 2.4 or 5Ghz network its own AP, though I can see how technically it is 2 routers configured in AP Mode serving 4 SSIDs across 2 bandwidths…
Yea, that's how it can work. setting it up as 4 separate networks is fine. as discussed, though, watch out for channel overlap
"What ch33 said was that your AT&T is the main router, IP should be 192.168.1.1, RT-AC87U IP should be 192.168.1.2, RT-N66U should be 192.168.1.3, and both RT-AC87U and RT-N66U should be in AP mode. Also turn off DHCP server functions on both routers.”
So, as of this morning’s testing, I suspect it is all configured correctly as stated, though I’m most unsure about the last instruction regarding DHCP server function because I’m not sure where to access and don’t want to mess anything up since it’s currently working (aside from one small glitch). Here are the knowns:
- Both RT-AC87U and RT-N66U are configured “AP mode”
- All 4 independent SSIDs show up as WiFis in my taskbar: 2.4 and 5GHz for RT-AC87U and 2.4 and 5GHz for RT-N66U
- All 4 of these SSIDs have been successfully connected to via my wife’s laptop and multiple cell phones
- From my POV, everything works as it should and I get fast, reliable WiFi in all corners of my house (I will be turning off the WiFi on my ATT modem/router as it gives the least amount of WiFi coverage and is already blanketed by the Asus-based SSIDs).
As long as everything's configured correctly, you should be able to access each SOHO-router-as-a-WAP individually.
During the configuration of both the WAP's, you should have turned off DHCP, disabled the WAN port, and reconfigured the WAP's IP to something on the ATT's network (but again, outside of the ATT's DHCP pool to avoid IP conflicts). Don't plug any cables into the WAN port of the WAP's.
I also don't configure the Default Gateway either, because the WAP itself doesn't need it to do it's job. This can be dependant on your SOHO router, because code can be weird sometimes.
All the clients connected through these WAP's (including on the 3 remaining LAN ports), should be getting DHCP addresses from the ATT device.
ISSUE: My laptop (which sits near my wife’s) was what I used to set up all the routers, and it can’t connect to either the RT-AC87U or the RT-N66U 2.4GHz SSIDs via Windows SSID connection scheme in the taskbar or via the Asus GUI. I can see them as SSIDs in the taskbar popup, but my laptop can’t connect (5 GHz works just fine). I’ve never had an issue with connecting to 2.4Ghz SSIDs on either Router and I suspect it’s something that came about during the configuration process.
I flushed cache and cookies and rebooted with no change (still can’t connect to the 2.4 GHz SSIDs on either router). I called Asus tech support and they recommended reinstalling the WiFi Drivers on my laptop. If I go that route, do I use device manager to see which WiFi drivers are active? I was thinking of making a restore point, installing my old drivers, then reinstalling them again. Waste of time or is this my only other avenue to fix my own laptop?
I could just live with only 5GHz access on my laptop but I’ve come this far, and I want it to work 100% like the other clients in the house… I will try your channel idea as a first, easy step to resolve but suspect it is not that since I’ve never had an issue with 2.4 GHz before this recent reconfiguring necessary to complete an ISP change from Comcrap to ATT. On another related note… One thing I did notice is that there are about 20+ APs from my neighbors that are visible in my task bar. I was assuming I could just hide them using a “right-click” or something but no… it looks like I have to run some command prompt commands to make them hidden… Really Win 7 and 10? That’s lame…
You can try driver reload, it may help. I wouldn't call it a waste of time because it's relatively simple and not time consuming.
What model Asus laptop, what WLAN adapter, and what OS?
The laptop seeing a bunch of networks isn't a problem in itself, but interference from other networks can cause some weird problems.
You can also try booting a Live version of linux and see if you can connect to the WiFi that way. The bootable Linux distro is typically a CD or DVD
https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/try-ubuntu-before-you-install#0
This won't change your hard drive, and will use a completely different set of drivers. If this works ok, you know it's a Windows/driver problem.
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