Using two 2wire routers

[needmadad]

Hello. Here is the setting I am trying to achieve.
So I have ATT uverse and they gave me a router 3600HGV (2Wire). The router went into the communication box of the house from where it connects to various ethernet ports in various rooms of the house.

Now in the office room, I have multiple computers, so I want to connect multiple computers to that ethernet port. I have a previous 3600HGV (2wire) router so I plugged that in to the ethernet port and then from it connect to various computers.

The connections work, but they are slow and sometimes do not even work. I am not even able to go to the 192.168.1.254 router config.

The solution I see is to convert the router in my office to an access point/switch kind of behavior. Any ideas on how to do that? Any other solution anyone can recommend?

 

[sk1939]

There are a couple ways of doing it. First, disable NAT and disable DHCP. The second is to bridge the router. The third, is to buy an actual switch.

To "Bridge" the router:

1. Set your router's WAN interface to get an IP address via DHCP. This is required at first so that the 2Wire recognizes your router.
2. Plug your router's WAN interface to one of the 2Wire's LAN interfaces.
3. Restart your router, let it get an IP address via DHCP.
4. Log into the 2Wire router's interface. Go to Settings -> Firewall -> Applications, Pinholes, and DMZ
5. Select your router under section (1).
6. Click the DMZPlus button under section (2).
7. Click the Save button.
8. Restart your router, when it gets an address via DHCP again, it will be the public outside IP address. At this point, you can leave your router in DHCP mode (make sure the firewall on your router allows the DHCP renewal packets, which will occur every 10 minutes), or you can change your router's IP address assignment on the WAN interface to static, and use the same settings it received via DHCP.
9. On the 2Wire router, go to Settings -> Firewall -> Advanced Configuration
10. Uncheck the following: Stealth Mode, Block Ping, Strict UDP Session Control.
11. Check everything under Outbound Protocol Control except NetBIOS.
12. Uncheck NetBIOS under Inbound Protocol Control.
13. Uncheck all the Attack Detection checkboxes (7 of them).
14. Click Save.