Setting up second wifi router

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FelixDaHousecat

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Hi guys, have a fibre box and Wi-Fi router working well in one part of the house. There is a network cable going from the Wi-Fi router through the roof to another part of the house to a second Wi-Fi router (to extend the signal). I set the second router up ages ago, and will work fine for weeks and then randomly give issues and have to randomly pull put cables..put them in different ports etc. It got so annoying that i replaced it with another Wi-Fi router but its old and alsp not working properly. Maybe i haven't set it up right? Should cable with internet from primary Wi-Fi routet go into thr WAN port or a normal lan port to second router? 1st router and fibre box never have issues and v reliable. Both Wifi routers are Tipi link. Can u maybe give advice on some settings, or also a good cheap second Wi-Fi router i can install? Needs to have at least two LAN ports for incoming internet and to send to Dstv decoder. If anything is unclear happy to clarify. Thanks!
 
FelixDaHousecat said:
Hi guys, have a fibre box and Wi-Fi router working well in one part of the house. There is a network cable going from the Wi-Fi router through the roof to another part of the house to a second Wi-Fi router (to extend the signal). I set the second router up ages ago, and will work fine for weeks and then randomly give issues and have to randomly pull put cables..put them in different ports etc. It got so annoying that i replaced it with another Wi-Fi router but its old and alsp not working properly. Maybe i haven't set it up right? Should cable with internet from primary Wi-Fi routet go into thr WAN port or a normal lan port to second router? 1st router and fibre box never have issues and v reliable. Both Wifi routers are Tipi link. Can u maybe give advice on some settings, or also a good cheap second Wi-Fi router i can install? Needs to have at least two LAN ports for incoming internet and to send to Dstv decoder. If anything is unclear happy to clarify. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Cable goes to the lan port, and remember to turn DHCP off on the new router
 
Yeah, still having the same issues after disabling DHCP and using LAN port. Can anyone recommend a decent reliable Wifi router? Gonna get a replacement.
 
Would it be best to buy a second Wi-Fi router for these purposes? Or some other kind of device? Basically just want to receive internet from a LAN cable from the primary WiFi router, create another hotspot in another part of the house, and then have 1-2 free ports to send a wired connection to Dstv decoder and a laptop from second Wifi router. My primary router is this one: https://www.takealot.com/tp-link-ac750-dual-band-wi-fi-router/PLID46665446
I know it's reliable and works well. Should I just get a second one of these routers to extend the signal through a Lan cable? Will they work well together?
 
FelixDaHousecat said:
Tipi link
Click to expand...
Ha! Did they rebrand themselves? ;)

Your second router should be put in AP/Bridge/Gateway mode, but the router firmware probably does not have any of those options. Hopefully you can flash it with DD-WRT firmware.

By the way, if the SSID's on your routers are not identical in name, you should put each router on a different non-overlapping channel.
 
FelixDaHousecat said:
Would it be best to buy a second Wi-Fi router for these purposes? Or some other kind of device? Basically just want to receive internet from a LAN cable from the primary WiFi router, create another hotspot in another part of the house, and then have 1-2 free ports to send a wired connection to Dstv decoder and a laptop from second Wifi router. My primary router is this one: https://www.takealot.com/tp-link-ac750-dual-band-wi-fi-router/PLID46665446
I know it's reliable and works well. Should I just get a second one of these routers to extend the signal through a Lan cable? Will they work well together?
Click to expand...
what router are you currently using as the second router
 
This one - https://www.takealot.com/tp-link-300mbps-wireless-n-router/PLID28719995. Works fine for some time then messes up. And thanks "D", when I set up the second router (with different SSID), I made sure it was on channel 1 while the main was on channel 7. I'll see if I can change the mode on it tomorrow - it's in someone else's room (for some reason couldn't connect to it via Wifi - not sure what the ip address of that router is.
 
FelixDaHousecat said:
This one - https://www.takealot.com/tp-link-300mbps-wireless-n-router/PLID28719995. Works fine for some time then messes up. And thanks "D", when I set up the second router (with different SSID), I made sure it was on channel 1 while the main was on channel 7. I'll see if I can change the mode on it tomorrow - it's in someone else's room (for some reason couldn't connect to it via Wifi - not sure what the ip address of that router is.
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that router actually has a setting to use it in AP mode, also i would update its IP address so if you main router is 10.0.0.2 make this one 10.0.0.3
you can have both on the same SSID name and password if you want as long as the channel is different
 
I agree what was said before here. If you want to use a second router as an extender then it's best to set it to AP mode if it has that option. If it doesn't you end up with DHCP issues and a double NAT situation.

Most routers have an AP mode setting.
 
"D" said:
Not in AP mode, surely?
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best practice to use different channels, AP mode allows this, Repeater mode doesn't
giphy.gif
 
Hey guys, thanks so much for all your help!! This thing has been bothering me so much for months and months, always causing issues and think it's finally sorted. So I had to update the firmware for the TP link-TL-WR840N because the existing firmware had no AP mode on it. Thankfully this enabled AP mode. I've set it up and given it a static IP address in the same range as what my main router assigns. DHCP is disabled and it seems to be working ok. I'm just not sure about something - should my internet from the main router go into the WAN port, or the LAN port? I put it into the LAN port, but saw a video from TP-LINK that says if I'm using AP mode, the AP router should have it's the main router LAN cable coming into the WAN port. Is this correct?
 
Ok cool, will leave the cable from main router in the WAN port of the AP router. Fingers crossed this keeps working!
I assigned the Wifi channel of my AP router to 1 and the Wifi channel of my main router is 6. Should this be ok?
 
FelixDaHousecat said:
Hey guys, thanks so much for all your help!! This thing has been bothering me so much for months and months, always causing issues and think it's finally sorted. So I had to update the firmware for the TP link-TL-WR840N because the existing firmware had no AP mode on it. Thankfully this enabled AP mode. I've set it up and given it a static IP address in the same range as what my main router assigns. DHCP is disabled and it seems to be working ok. I'm just not sure about something - should my internet from the main router go into the WAN port, or the LAN port? I put it into the LAN port, but saw a video from TP-LINK that says if I'm using AP mode, the AP router should have it's the main router LAN cable coming into the WAN port. Is this correct?
Click to expand...
Most routers the Lan port - TP link however does allow the WAN port to be used on certain models in AP mode - i can't recall if the WR840N is one of them

FelixDaHousecat said:
Ok cool, will leave the cable from main router in the WAN port of the AP router. Fingers crossed this keeps working!
I assigned the Wifi channel of my AP router to 1 and the Wifi channel of my main router is 6. Should this be ok?
Click to expand...

yep should be fine -

if you have an android phone get wifi analyzer app and just confirm the arcs are not overlapping - can also make sure none of your neighbours are using the same channels.
 
Awesome tips thanks! Downloaded that app and theres no overlap which is good. I'll leave it in the WAN port and if there's any issues I'll try the LAN. So far so good. If it doesn't work (maybe the router is faulty) can u recommend any good cheap access point routers? Thinking of getting one anyway as a backup. Appreciate all the great help!
 
FelixDaHousecat said:
Awesome tips thanks! Downloaded that app and theres no overlap which is good. I'll leave it in the WAN port and if there's any issues I'll try the LAN. So far so good. If it doesn't work (maybe the router is faulty) can u recommend any good cheap access point routers? Thinking of getting one anyway as a backup. Appreciate all the great help!
Click to expand...
not faulty it will work but the WR840N are cheap for a reason, they ok but need a reboot every now and again (maybe to set it to auto reboot once a week ),
as for anohter router the one you using as a main router im not sure but I think it should be OK. I am using this model both as main and as a second AP
 
Awesome, thanks for the tip! This one looks great but a lil pricey so will probably stick with the Archer C20 as a second AP, which has been working great as main router.
 
Just to update - the second router that was always giving issues worked perfectly after using it in AP mode - no more conflicts, thanks a million! Since this post I decided to upgrade the Tp-link C20 as our main router to a TP-link C6 AC1200 which was on special from Incredible Connection for R999. It's been working perfectly for a week as main router replacement, managed to set it up with no problems. The AC1200 has an option to use this MU-MIMO mode which I enabled on the device - is it better to leave it on or off? Some devices are far from the router at times so left it on for that purpose.

Am busy configuring the C20 to replace the one that was the AP as it's a better router with better range. It also has AP mode. Should I assign the AP router a static IP like 192.168.1.2 and should I put the incoming LAN cable into the WAN port or into one of the Ethernet ports? Thanks! Ematic Smart TV box just arrived too so looking forward to setting that up tomorrow. I guess it'll work perfectly fine if I plug the Smart TV box into one of the LAN ports on the AP router?
 
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