New router

[19danny94]

Hey so I recently bought a new router for my home, all it came with was a standard Ethernet cable to connect the router to the computer, the thing is the cable I was using for my previous router is too small to fit into the WAN socket but it fits a normal Ethernet cable which i have but it needs to connect into a splitter which has a small socket and does not fit into it my question is are there a cable which has a normal Ethernet cable on one side and a smaller one on the other or and splitter which takes a normal Ethernet cable?

Thanks for reading my post.

 

[eibgrad]

The reason that cable you’re attempting to plug into the router is too small is probably because it’s a phone cable, and was previously connected to a DSL modem+router. If so, you can’t just plug that phone line into another router because the router is expecting to be connected over ethernet to a cable/DSL modem! IOW, by removing the old modem+router, and getting a new router, you’ve eliminated the dsl modem you need between that phone cable and the new router!

So you either need to get a standalone DSL modem, or else use the old modem+router and patch the new router behind it (iow, chain one behind the other), WAN to LAN.

In order to be 100% sure this is the case, I suggest you provide the make and model # of all devices you're using, both before and after this latest change in router.

 

[19danny94]

Thanks for the quick reply the router I am currently using is a Thompson TG587n v2 and the router I just bought is a TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND.

 

[eibgrad]

Well it's confirmed. You replaced your Thompson modem+router w/ just a router. Hopefully you still have the Thompson.

So as I said, you either have to get a standalone modem, or use the Thompson again and connect the TP-Link behind it. Ideally, the Thompson would support "bridge mode" which would let you demote it to ONLY a modem and make for a better experience w/ the TP-Link. But you’d have to look deeper to find out for sure.

Btw, did the ISP provide you w/ the Thompson?

 

[19danny94]

Yes it was supplied by O2 Broadband

 

[19danny94]

But i don't understand do I plug the thompson router in normally then plug the TP-link in via ethernet cable?

 

[eibgrad]

Yep, Thompson as before, then plug the TP-Link over its WAN port to a LAN port on the Thompson. This is just chaining routers together.

There’s only one possible complication. You need to make sure the two routers are using different networks. For example, if you we're using the 192.168.1.x network w/ the Thompson, and the TP-Link happens to be using the same network by default, then once you have these hooked up, and get connected to the TP-Link, you'll need to change the TP-Link network to something else, say 192.168.2.x.

But all that's somewhat premature until you know if there even is a network conflict. It's just something you need to check and then make the adjustment if it the networks do conflict.

 

[19danny94]

Ok Thanks for all your help.

 

[19danny94]

Ok I have them linked together but I am not sure how to change the network I can log on to my router but don't know what to do from there.

 

[eibgrad]

What is the network used by each router, are they indeed different? No point changing anything if they're not.

 

[eibgrad]

P.S. If you're not sure, then for each router, you need to connect the computer to the router, reboot the computer, and generate a network dump using the following instructions.

Hit Windows key + R, copy/paste the following into the box, and hit enter.

cmd /c "ipconfig /all > %tmp%\tmp.txt && start notepad %tmp%\tmp.txt"

Note the "IP Address" line, which will tell us the network in use for that router.

 

[19danny94]

The thompson router is 192.168.1.64 but when I try to log on to the tp link router it comes up with a website which was not there before I tried connecting the routers together.

 

[eibgrad]

I checked the TP-Link user guide, it appears it uses 192.168.1.x by default, so you do have a conflict.

Find the LAN page on the TP-Link and change the 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.2.1

 

[19danny94]

Ok for me to be able to change that I need to set up the TP-Link router but I need another ethernet cable to set it up as the only one I have is connecting the two routers together.

 

[eibgrad]

You don't need to have the cable connected between the routers to change the TP-Link, you just need to be connected to the TP-Link.

 

[19danny94]

You cant get any further in the setup because it stops when you cannot connect the WAN.

 

[19danny94]

Ok I have it all set up now and connected to the TP-Link router. But now I cannot forward the ports on my router.

 

[eibgrad]

Yes, that's one of the downsides of chaining routers. Now you're double NAT'd and behind two firewalls.

The crudest means to rectify the situation is to port forward on both the Thompson and TP-Link.

An alternative is to assign the WAN of the TP-Link a static IP from the Thompson (so it never changes) and place that IP in the DMZ of the Thompson. Now all traffic that would otherwise be blocked by the Thompson's firewall will be automatically redirected to the TP-Link's firewall, and thus you’ll only need to manage the TP-Link firewall from then on.

Of course, both the above assume you have those features available to you and that the ISP has not “locked down” the Thompson in some fashion to prevent it.

As I said before, the *best* way to solve this problem is to demote the Thompson to only being a modem (i.e., completely eliminating its routing capabilities, the double NAT, double firewall, etc.). But to do that, the Thompson must support “bridge mode”, and unfortunately I’m not familiar enough w/ that router to even know if it’s possible. Some of modem+router devices support it, some don’t. But you might want to ask your ISP if it is possible. Perhaps he’s asked this routinely and even has instructions!

But if “bridge mode” is either not available or something you can’t address at the moment, you’re left to either manage both firewalls or redirect the Thompson firewall to your firewall via the Thompson DMZ.

 

[19danny94]

ok everything is seems to be working the way i want now I just have to forward the ports on both routers thanks for all the help mate much appreciated.

 

[glacialflames]

Hey, I've been following this and it helped me alot in setting up my new router in the same way, but I was hoping I could have some more help in this step

"An alternative is to assign the WAN of the TP-Link a static IP from the Thompson (so it never changes) and place that IP in the DMZ of the Thompson. Now all traffic that would otherwise be blocked by the Thompson's firewall will be automatically redirected to the TP-Link's firewall, and thus you’ll only need to manage the TP-Link firewall from then on. "

I tried to set my WAN to a static IP but I don't know what to put in for the settings (such as DNS), Thanks

 

[eibgrad]

Hey, I've been following this and it helped me alot in setting up my new router in the same way, but I was hoping I could have some more help in this step

"An alternative is to assign the WAN of the TP-Link a static IP from the Thompson (so it never changes) and place that IP in the DMZ of the Thompson. Now all traffic that would otherwise be blocked by the Thompson's firewall will be automatically redirected to the TP-Link's firewall, and thus you’ll only need to manage the TP-Link firewall from then on. "

I tried to set my WAN to a static IP but I don't know what to put in for the settings (such as DNS), Thanks

The simplest thing to do is to use DHCP and see what it get set to, then use those settings!

 

[glacialflames]

Should i use all of the settings in the dynamic one? (IP Address, Subnet Mask, Gateway and DNS)

 

[eibgrad]

The idea here is to use all the same parameters EXCEPT use a static IP address, one that lies outside the scope of the DHCP server (or else that same IP might be assigned later to someone else who uses DHCP!).

Now if the primary router’s DHCP server supports the binding of specific IP addresses to specific MAC addresses (most do, but not all), you could set that up in the primary router and thus allow the secondary router to continue using DHCP w/ the guarantee it will always receive the same IP address.

So the choice is yours, a static IP specified in the secondary router, OR, use DHCP to reserve a static IP for that device based on its WAN MAC address.

 

[glacialflames]

I'm not sure how I managed to mess this up, but I did. So I gave my Primary router a static IP ending in .64, and my computer a static IP ending in .50. Then I changed the DMZ of the old router to .64, and in the settings of the new router port forwarded .50 for my computer. I must of missed something for this doesn't work, any clue what I did wrong?

 

[eibgrad]

The purpose of using the DMZ is so you do NOT have to port forward! So just place the WAN IP of the second router in the DMZ of the first router, you're done.