Having trouble setting up Access Point

[Aunnix]

I have just upgraded my wireless router to an N router and I am wanting to turn my old B router into an access point for my PS3. I have used a few tutorials that I've found and have been recommended to me, but I'm still having no luck getting this thing to work.

Basically, I am stuck on how I should be hooking up the router to access it. First, the equipment:

(new router) Netgear WND3700 N600 Dual Band
(old router - to be the AP) Linksys BEFW11S4 B
(hooked up to Netgear) Desktop PC
(hooked up to Linksys) Laptop PC

Now, most of the sites I've been on don't really make it clear how the routers should be hooked up. They just say hook up the old router to a PC, and one website said to hook it into the new (gateway - netgear) router's LAN ports and do the setup. BOTH of these routers share the same IP address for (192.168.1.1) to access the admin area. When I had the Linksys hooked into the Netgear, I tried to access the Linksys router using the IP address and it would just take me to the Netgear admin. So, I'm assuming the network was treating the Linksys as a switch and ignoring any wireless aspects.

Then, I unhooked the Linksys from the Netgear and ran ONLY the laptop to the Linksys while powering it and was able to access the admin area. After setting the settings (DHCP disabled, assigned IP address to 192.168.1.2 (gateway DHCP range is 192.168.1.2 - .254), setup WEP security and renamed the SSID) I checked my wireless connections on the laptop and it was recognized. So, I went ahead and connected to it, but it said "Limited to no connectivity" and then I realized I had not hooked it up to the Netgear. So I ran it back to the Netgear router (LAN to LAN) and it didn't change anything and I could not access the internet wirelessly.

So, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong as once I finally got into the Linksys admin area I'm quite sure I changed the settings correctly. I'm assuming that I am confusing myself and not properly hooking up the Linksys to either the PC(s) or the new router... Any help and suggestions are greatly appreciated as I'm at my wits ends with this..

Thanks

 

[ktriebol]

You say that the Netgear router has an IP address of 192.168.1.1. I believe you say later on in your post that the DHCP range for that (Netgear) router is 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254. When setting the Linksys unit up to be an AP, you must set the IP address of the Linksys unit outside the range of the main (Netgear) router . Therefore, you could try 192.168.1.0 on the Linksys unit.

 

[Aunnix]

You say that the Netgear router has an IP address of 192.168.1.1. I believe you say later on in your post that the DHCP range for that (Netgear) router is 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254. When setting the Linksys unit up to be an AP, you must set the IP address of the Linksys unit outside the range of the main (Netgear) router . Therefore, you could try 192.168.1.0 on the Linksys unit.

Thanks! I will give this a shot this evening after work.

I knew it had to be set outside of the IP range, but in all of the tutorials I've been using they keep referring to an example range of like 192.168.1.10 - 192.168.1.100 and they would set their router to 192.168.1.2 this was confusing me because I couldn't find anything where one of the numbers in the IP address was more than 1 digit (with the exception of the 192 and 168). The last two numbers only let me set single digits for the LAN IP, so I had no idea where the .10/.100 numbers were coming from, lol.

I probably need to do some research on this, but would it be wise for me to shorten the DHCP range? Instead of 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254 maybe use like 192.168.1.2 - 192.18.1.20? I'm not real sure how this range thing works, lol.

 

[ktriebol]

I probably need to do some research on this, but would it be wise for me to shorten the DHCP range? Instead of 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254 maybe use like 192.168.1.2 - 192.18.1.20? I'm not real sure how this range thing works, lol.

Yes, I think shortening the DHCP range to something like what you have suggested is wise. Your suggested range still provides for connecting 19 devices, so if that is enough for your anticipated needs, then go for it. Actually, I was going to suggest that myself. Anyway, after you shorten the DHCP range, just be aware that anything that you currently have on wireless, like a printer, may now be assigned a new IP address, so that could affect things like a bookmark to your printer that you might have set in your web browser. You might even have to re-install your printer to get it to work right.

 

[Aunnix]

Yes, I think shortening the DHCP range to something like what you have suggested is wise. Your suggested range still provides for connecting 19 devices, so if that is enough for your anticipated needs, then go for it. Actually, I was going to suggest that myself. Anyway, after you shorten the DHCP range, just be aware that anything that you currently have on wireless, like a printer, may now be assigned a new IP address, so that could affect things like a bookmark to your printer that you might have set in your web browser. You might even have to re-install your printer to get it to work right.

Well, so far I'm safe on the printer. I am trying to setup a server to do some web hosting and streaming across the network. I will check into this range thing this evening to see if I can get a handle on it to plan for the amount of devices I will be running. This is only for wireless devices though, correct? As my main desktop PC and server will be wired into a gigabit switch extending off the router.

 

[Aunnix]

Ok, I got it to work by changing my range. It was weird because I tried it a few times and nothing was working. So, I let it sit for a couple days and reset everything and tried again and it worked in like 10 minutes after resetting the IP address.

I figured I'd just split the .254 range in half so that would leave plenty of addresses for connected devices and plenty of static addresses outside of the gateway's range for another AP or printers. So, 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.127 is my IP range.

 

[ktriebol]

Good job!