Use 2nd wireless modem router as relay

sindrealm

January 6, 2011 9:15:41 PM

Hi, I've recently extended my house and now find that my tv/games consol on the ground floor is getting a weak signal from the wireless modem router in my office on the 1st floor. I thought of using the mains power route but as its a new build house each floor is on a seperate fuse board. I went to buy a compatable wireless relay but the guy in the shop suggested that I should buy a new modem router. My existing modem router came with the sky broadband 3 years ago (Netgear, WPA-PSK security, mode g & b only). I've now bought a new Netgear modem router (Wireless-N 300 DGN2200). However, when i tried to swap it over, the new router loaded the existing IP config etc from the main PC but said it was not correct and required the internet supplier to manually input the correct detail. Sky helpdesk said that they did not support routers that they have not provided! They suggested that i change the channel on my existing router to 13 which i've done. Not much has changed!! I am now hoping that i can connect my new router wirelessly to the existing one to relay the signal. Both are Netgear. Can somebody help?

More about : 2nd wireless modem router relay

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Anonymous

Wireless Authority

January 7, 2011 6:32:25 AM

Check the specs or the user setup screens of both routers to see if they both support WDS -- if not you will be stuck with a wired connection between the two.

If the Sky router is the white DG834GT model it doesn't do WDS. One of the later Netgear models supplied by Sky does WDS I think -- the model is equivalent to a Netgear retail product but I don't recall which. For more help on that go to the independent Sky users site www.skyuser.co.uk

The link below may help in any case:

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1080

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sindrealm

January 8, 2011 9:16:03 PM

Thanks, the existing router is a grey / black SKY Netgear DG934gt. Having looked into it Sky have replaced the firmware with their own version to disable certain "features". Sky do not allow you to see the ADSL username and password hardcoded into each router. That is why i failed to replace the existing router with the new one.
Netgear have very little info on the DG934gt or the new router DGN2200 so i don't know if they both have WDS.
I will have to confinue to use the Sky Netgear DG934GT as my main router. Not sure if I can convert my DGN2200 into a relay / repeater. I have been onto the following site: http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index to find the suitable firmware but no joy!

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Anonymous

Wireless Authority

January 8, 2011 10:59:56 PM

Sky's advice to change to channel 13 is typical technically illiterate nonsense from a call centre. You need to test every channel for it's suitability in the environment of your home -- reception can be affected by lots of things and the different channels may work better or worse. You also have to take into account any strong neighbouring wifi networks in range of both your router and your computer and choose a channel at least 5 stops from the strongest.

Check out www.skyuser.co.uk because I think the grey router you have is just a Netgear retail model with a different case -- and Sky's horrible firmware.

I believe it's possible to reflash it but obviously you need to know which Netgear retail-type firmware to replace it with. The guys on that site are fully versed in how to reflash and with what. They'll also tell you how to set up the WAN parameters needed to connect with Sky and how to extract a username password from the Sky router to use in another.

It is quite simple to reflash -- I did a Sky DG834GT to use with Tiscali and had no trouble putting in WAN settings manually with help from Tiscali's help website. It's been running for 3 years without a glitch

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