Friday, September 2, 2016

Fun & Games Trying to Convert a Wireless Router to Access Point

I complained a while back that my powerline Ethernet gave a miserable data rate in the garage because crossing circuit breakers is a struggle, and my wi-fi has trouble getting that far, but I would try and set up a wireless router in the bedroom next to the garage where I already had a 100 Mbps cable.   One of my readers provided a used Linksys wireless router (thank you!).  There are a number of instructions for how to do this; some are better than others.

Okay, I tried, and the results were bizarre.  I used the Toshiba to configure the Linksys as an AP; disabled DHCP; set IP to 192.168.1.2; set WPA2 as security with the password of the regular wireless network.  Plugged the cable from Linksys LAN socket into 100 Mbps Ethernet cable.  The Toshiba worked great on wi-fi to the Linksys; 18 Mbps, which is close to the ISP's promised data rate.

The antique HP I use in the garage showed a very strong signal from the Linksys but almost no sites would appear.  I think it is a failure to resolve domain names.  So I moved the Toshiba from the Linksys room back to the kitchen and it continued to give great performance.  Then I brought the HP antique in the house and it still did not work with the Linksys.  Worse, my wife's PC suddenly stopped worked.  That was solved by disconnecting the Linksys.

I wonder if the last time I was configuring the Linksys (many attempts interrupted by pressing the rest button to return to default state) I might have forgotten to turn off the DHCP server, which would confuse the heck out of the system, and might explain why the Linux PC was especially confused

3 comments:

  1. That is the wrong fixed IP address to use for the device. First, log in to your regular router and look up the range of DHCP addresses it will give out. If it is 0-255, restrict it to 0-239 or something. Then assign the fixed IP address of the Router-as-access-point outside of that range.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My router is made by Tenda and gives you the option of DHCP, but no way to control the range of addresses.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Using 192.168.1.2 is in the path of most routers DHCP assignment range. If you can't control the range move your device, set it at the far end of the router's start point. 192.168.1.2 is the first address most routers choose.

    An alternative is to check if your router allows you to set fixed IP addresses.

    ReplyDelete