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Freeflyer · 09:25 AM

Hi all, after advice here on extending my wireless range, I bought a Netgear MR814 ($30AR) as a second router to my FM114P.

I have configured the new router as an access point so that the address is on the same range as the first router and turned off the dhcp. I can now connect through it, both wired and wireless, but have a couple of questions and one problem.

The problem is that occasionally I lose the ability to connect via the wireless laptops. I can ping the pc wired to the main router, and I can ping the new router, but I can't ping the main router. If I reboot the main (FM114P) router, it all comes back, which suggests to me that there may be something wrong with how I've setup the new one. The main router hasn't displayed this problem until I added the second router.

Also, I have the main router setup with a MAC address access list, I take it that I don't need to do this with the second router too. Could someone confirm this for me please.

Also, if I turn WEP on, do I have to do that on both routers or just the main one. I'm guessing that I have to do it on both. Would I have to use the same key on both routers for them to work together. IE, have a wireless laptop moving around the house and still talk to whichever is the closest access point.

Many thanks,

J.

aaanorton · Sep 14, 2003, 10:30 AM

Are you using the WAN port on the 2nd (MR814) router? You should not. Plug everything into the LAN ports. Give them both the same network name (SSID) and put them on different channels.
For security, I think you've got it backwards. MAC address filtering is router-based, so you'd need to activate it on both. Whereas WEP is network-based, so you just need this enabled on the first, main router. I'm pretty sure about these two, but not 100%.

Freeflyer · Sep 14, 2003, 11:26 AM

No, I wasn't using the WAN port, I'd seen that I shouldn't do that on another posting, so everything's going through the lan ports.

I didn't realise I should use different channels, so I've done that now, and set MAC address access on both routers.

I'm leaving wep encryption off for now, while I'm just testing the access ability.

Do you know if I need to have the static ip/subnet mask and gateway address set in both routers. I've done this, as it's either that or have the second one set for 'get from isp', which it doesn't need to do.

Thanks for your help, I'll post back later on whether it makes a difference to needing to reboot the main router. I've found rebooting the second router didn't make any difference. It's definitely the main router that's having a problem with the setup so far.

Cheers,

J;

Freeflyer · Sep 14, 2003, 04:15 PM

Further to all that, no it hasn't fixed the problem. After a period of time, I lose all connection to the main router. I can still ping the new router(access point) but not the main one.

Any ideas on where I might be able to track down the problem.

Thanks,

J.

aaanorton · Sep 14, 2003, 04:39 PM

Originally posted by Freeflyer:
Do you know if I need to have the static ip/subnet mask and gateway address set in both routers. I've done this, as it's either that or have the second one set for 'get from isp', which it doesn't need to do.

Try setting both to get IPs and DNSs automatically.

meem · Sep 15, 2003, 12:22 AM

I have 2 linksys wireless routers and the main one is set up pretty much the way it was out of the box. On the second one I had to turn off DHCP and there was a another setting under Dynamic Routing which the choices where "router" or "gateway". Gateway was the default. I had to change it to router. I believe this is so that it will give connections to it the IPs that the first router has decided on. Also because of this I can't ping the second router as I believe it doesn't have an IP address any more. I'm pretty new to networking though and I dunno if the Netgear routers have the Dynamic Routing setting or if it's just called something else

oh ethernet just plugged into a regular port on the first (main) router but in the uplink port on the second.

Freeflyer · Sep 15, 2003, 04:02 PM

Originally posted by aaanorton:
Try setting both to get IPs and DNSs automatically.

With a static ip address, don't you have to assign it, as it's not being given an address by a dhcp server?

aaanorton · Sep 15, 2003, 04:10 PM

Originally posted by Freeflyer:
With a static ip address, don't you have to assign it, as it's not being given an address by a dhcp server?

So you pay for a static IP from your ISP? If so, then ya, you'll need to add this manually to the first router, but leave everything else on auto.

Freeflyer · Sep 16, 2003, 11:41 AM

Originally posted by aaanorton:
So you pay for a static IP from your ISP? If so, then ya, you'll need to add this manually to the first router, but leave everything else on auto.

I get a static ip as standard from cyberonic. Thanks for the help, I'm working on setting it up and testing now.

Cheers,

J.

Freeflyer · Sep 18, 2003, 08:47 AM

Just to say that it's all working now. Had to set the ip address of the router in the lan ip setup page, and leave everything on auto on the basic setup page. I think that's where I was going wrong.

Took a few goes and much hair pulling, but it's been working fine for a couple of days now. If anyone needs specific info I can mail then directly with the full notes I wrote as I went through.

Thanks for all the help and feedback

Absolutely no thanks to netgear's tech support who are the biggest bunch of cretins I've ever talked to. if it's not on their list of things to do they cannot think of what else might work, and evidently don't understand much about networking. Thank goodness for this forum.

Cheers,

J.