jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Apr 22 15:25:24 CDT 2009
Wow, thanks for that. I may try that eventually. What I just finished doing is to move the cable modem down into the basement on the wall where the cable comes into the house. The cable phone modem is already there, and I had previously placed a un-interruptible power supply there to feed that phone modem. So I just placed the cable modem and wireless modem right next to that. So the wireless is now in the basement, but it is directly in the middle of the house (on an outside wall actually), and directly under my wife's office. She now has a wireless signal to noise of about 56, where she used to have about a 36-40. Quite an improvement of course and to be expected since she is literally about 8 feet directly above the wireless transmitter. Unfortunately now I have to do some cable cutting and install new connectors in the middle. I had a long cable running from my office down a 1" PVC pipe directly down into the basement, then from there down the length of the house to the living room. When I moved in to the house, the upstairs end was just thrown out into the attic next to my office (next to the PVC pipe), and the downstairs end was just hanging in a loop. I pulled the upstairs end into my office and connected it to the gigabit switch, and then pulled the downstairs end down the house to the living room wall and up behind my media center PC. Now I have to cut that cable in half, put connectors on the cut ends and plug it into the wireless router's switch which is now downstairs. In the end it makes sense to do this, but I had resisted because I had to do the cutting and crimping of connectors on the cable, and also because everyone said that the wireless should be above, not below the laptops. Oh well. Mary has a very strong signal and keeping the wife happy is of paramount importance. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com Jim Dettman wrote: > John, > > Here's what you do: > > 1. Disconnect all cables from the 2nd router. > > 2. Power off, hold the rest switch and power on. You should be back to > factory defaults at this point. Make sure you know what the username and > password is to access the router before doing this. > > 3. Cable a laptop to the LAN port of the 2nd router that is set to > autoconfig for the network settings and boot. Make sure the wireless card > is disabled if it has one. > > 4. Login to the router via web page. > > 5. Turn off DHCP. > > 6. Assign a static LAN IP address that is not in the first routers pool. > For example, if you first router has an address of: > > 192.168.122.1 and a pool of 10 address from 192.168.122.10 - > 192.168.122.19, assign the 2nd router an address of 192.168.122.2 > > Doesn't matter what the address is, just that it is fixed and not in the > first routers DHCP pool of address that might get handed out. > > For this 2nd router, nothing on the WAN side matters as nothing will be > connected to that port. Because everything is connected on the LAN side, > it's simply acting as a switch. > > 7. Shutdown the laptop and turn off the 2nd router. > > 8. Connect a cable from the 1st routers LAN port to the 2nd routers LAN > port. > > 9. Power on the 2nd router. Make sure you have a link light on the cable > from the first router. > > 10. Wait a minute or so and turn on the laptop. After boot, you should now > be able to access the Internet. > > 11. Now connect your media center to a LAN port on the 2nd router. Check > Internet connectivity. > > 12. Access the 2nd routers config via a web page and set the wireless > communication parameters (ie. Chanel). > > 13. Set the wireless security (method and key). > > 14. Using the same laptop as you did before, re-enable the wireless card and > reboot. > > 15. After boot, use the laptops wireless config utility to see the 2nd > router. > > Jim. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby > Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:57 AM > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving > Subject: Re: [AccessD] Second wireless at other end of house > > Well, I thought I had it running. The laptops downstairs could see the > second AP but could not > communicate over it. Even the Windows Media Center plugged directly into > the second router could > not see the internet. BTW it did not matter whether I plugged the cable > from upstairs into the WAN > or the switch (LAN ports) the WMC computer could not get to the internet. > > I had set up fixed IP addresses for both MACS in the second router. It > turns out that the WAN has a > MAC address and the WAN has a MAC address. I gave each of them individual > IP addresses (.122.98 and > .122.99), and was able to get at the second router setup stuff through the > WAN IP address when the > cable was plugged into the WAN port. I turned off the firewall in the > second router. I turned off > the DHCP server in the second router. I turned on broadcasting the router > tables, both ways, in > both routers. > > Everything APPEARED to be working when I had it plugged in up in my office > but when I moved it > downstairs... no joy. > > Sigh. > > John W. Colby > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > > Jim Dettman wrote: >> John, >> >> No, you definitely don't want the cable on the WAN port. If you do > that, >> you'll have another router in affect. Right now, with everything in a LAN >> port, your 2nd wireless router is simply acting as a repeater. >> >> The channel setup is somewhere in the router's configuration. >> >> Jim. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com >> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby >> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:27 PM >> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving >> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Second wireless at other end of house >> >> > What kind of 'cable' is running to the other end of the house? Another >> coax, or a Cat-5? >> >> A cat 5. It runs a gigabit signal from the gigabit switch down from my >> upstairs office through the >> basement to the other end of the house, and up behind my TV, and then into >> the WMC computer. >> >> I occasionally have guests come and want to connect down at the other end > of >> the house, even >> downstairs directly below the living room. I figured if I could get this >> thing to just broadcast >> the messages coming off that cable (act as an access point) then there > would >> be a second signal, >> complete with its own channel and its own AP name. >> >> I can't seem to do it, but I am not a network guy so I may be missing >> something simple. >> >> >> Do I need to feed the cable into the WAN of the second router? >> >> My network uses the IP range 192.168.122.X, with the DHCP Server in the >> first router being >> 192.168.122.1. and the AP name C2Db2. >> >> I assume that I need to turn off the second router DHCP Server. It was >> serving up 192.168.0.X and >> its address was 192.168.0.1. I tried assigning that "widget" (the piece > of >> the second router that >> has an IP address to AP name C2Db3 and the address 192.168.122.99 but when > I >> did so it gave me a >> warning that I was now on a different subnet and my computer wouldn't be >> able to see it. Which was >> true, suddenly I couldn't "see it" via the web address 192.168.0.1 OR the >> address 192.168.122.99. I >> kind of figured I would just have to log back on to the latter address and >> be able to see the router >> there. No dice. >> >> I have tried running the cable from the switch into the WAN and into one > of >> the 4 LAN ports but in >> no case can my laptop see the second wireless AP. >> >> I am baffled. >> >> John W. Colby >> www.ColbyConsulting.com >