I Need Help Setting Up a Secondary Router as a Repeater

Beefcake4000 · Oct 11, 2015

I want my old router to act as a range extender for the main modem/router, but have them connected via ethernet cable (having them talk wirelessly seems pointless when I already have a cable running across the rooms). Here are the details:

I have a modem/router, the Netgear C3700-100NAS, in one room, and a older router, a Netgear WNR2000v2, in another room. I have them connect by ethernet cable. I use the router as a source of a wireless connection in the room it is in since the C3700 has a poor signal in that room. I also use it as a switch, since the C3700 does not have an adequate amount of ethernet ports.

I don't like that I have two different wireless signals in my home. It's a bit messy to switch between them and it also clogs up the channels. I'd rather just have the main one from the C3700 and have the WNR2000 extend that signal. I'm new to setting this up, so I am unsure of how to set it up.

I believe this is the place I need to be at to set this up in the WNR2000:

I think I need to use the first option, the wireless repeater. However, I am unsure of what to enter in the two fields, "Repeater IP Address" and "Base Station Mac Address". Does the former mean the local IP of the C3700 on the WNR2000 i.e. the IP listed under connected devices? Does the latter mean the MAC address listed on the C3700, or the one listed by the WNR2000 under its connected devices? The C3700 lists two slightly differing MAC addresses: one on the advanced home screen under "Cable Information" and one under "Internet Port" on the advanced home screen, which is also labelled "Gateway Mac Address" in another menu.

Any help will be appreciated!

Pooneil · Oct 11, 2015

Beefcake4000 :

This is frequently called a wireless access point. See the instructions from the forum sticky post on the topic.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/36406-43-convert-wireless-router-wireless-access-point

Beefcake4000 · Oct 12, 2015

Pooneil :

This does indeed seem to be what I need. I've attempted to set it up, but I came across some errors. The first error stated "The IP address conflicts with the WAN IP subnet. Please enter a different IP address." I think this just means that both routers can't have the same subnet mask, so I changed the subnet of the WNR2000 to end with 240 (I don't know if this number really matters in my case.) Then, I got "Invalid DHCP ending and starting IP addresses. Please enter them again." No matter what I set the DHCP addresses to, the error would not go away. I decided to just proceed and connected the C3700 to the WNR2000 through the LAN port rather than WAN. My internet works, but now I can't access the settings of the WNR2000 (it's gateway is now the same as the C3700's) and I still have two separate wireless signals (or is that working as intended?)

Edit: I'm reading that the issue with the subnet mask is that both WAN and LAN subnets are the same. The fix is to not use the WAN port on the WNR2000, which is what the guide says to do. Now I just need to access the control panel of the WNR2000, which apparently is as easy as accessing it through it's IP rather than the gateway. However, the network map on the C3700 does not seem to list the WNR2000 (it used to when it was connected via WAN) which seems strange to me since my own PC is listed, now using the IP range of the C3700. I tried every IP on the network map and none of them redirect to the router (perhaps one did and just didn't load/work.)

Edit 2: So the fix was to change my computer's subnet to be on the same subnet as the WNR2000. For anyone else with these issue, this can be done via ncpa.cpl by going into the properties of the network adapter and then into the properties of the IPV4, and setting a manual IP address within the range of the WAP. Then I could access the WNR2000, which still had its old IP, and change the IP there to the range of the C3700. However, I still have two different wireless signals. I'm starting to think that this is normal and it's not possible to just get one. If it is, let me know how.

Pooneil · Oct 12, 2015

Beefcake4000 :

I didn't fully follow the prior post, but it sounds as if you got it mostly working. So what do you mean by two wireless signals? Two signals was the goal, wasn't it?

Do you mean two different SSID's appearing on your mobile device when you want just one or the same SSID appearing twice? The answer to both is the same. Make sure the SSID and WPA2 passphrase are identical on both the router and access point. If you think you have done this already, then I suggest typing them in notepad and pasting them into the setup on both wifi points. It may not seem necessary, but doing this assures the info is identical with no mistaken capital/lower case letters.

Beefcake4000 · Oct 12, 2015

Pooneil :

Beefcake4000 :

I didn't fully follow the prior post, but it sounds as if you got it mostly working. So what do you mean by two wireless signals? Two signals was the goal, wasn't it?

Do you mean two different SSID's appearing on your mobile device when you want just one or the same SSID appearing twice? The answer to both is the same. Make sure the SSID and WPA2 passphrase are identical on both the router and access point. If you think you have done this already, then I suggest typing them in notepad and pasting them into the setup on both wifi points. It may not seem necessary, but doing this assures the info is identical with no mistaken capital/lower case letters.

Yeah, that did the trick, thank you! No clogged channels, no hassle port forwarding, and everyone's on the same network.

Pooneil · Oct 12, 2015

Beefcake4000 :

Working wifi is a beautiful thing. Particular for the beleaguered home network administrator.

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