Increase Wireless Range with an Additional Router

[hampstor]

I wanted to relate a setup I did at home - hopefully it'll help somebody here looking to do the same thing in a cost effective manner.

Background:
I've had a few friends over the last while ask me how to increase the wireless range on their router due to being dead spots/low signal areas in their home. I recently (thanks to SpireTech) was able to move all my networking equipment into 1 location (into a 25U rack in the basement) in the house and clean up my rats nest of wiring.

However when I did that, I found that some areas in my house (upper floor, garage, rear deck of my house) had poor or no signal.

I considered wireless repeaters, range extenders, additional access points, and high gain antennas. Final solution (which works flawlessly, and little to no lag associated with using a repeater) was to add a second router in my house.

Equipment:
Existing:
D-Link DI-724GU G Router (ip addy: 192.168.0.1)
D-Link DGS-1016D 16port Gigabit Switch
Existing CAT5e Run from basement, to upper floor

New Router added to my network:
D-Link DIR-615 G/Draft-N Router

Setup / Configuration of new router:
- Before I joined it to the network, I plugged it into my notebook directly to configure it
- set the new DIR-615 up with the exact same SSID, and Wireless Password as the existing DI-724GU
- set the IP address on the DIR-615 to 192.168.0.2
- On the new DIR-615, turned off the DHCP server
- Thru the cat5e wiring (thanks to SpireTech), i plugged it into my home network thru one of the switch ports on it (not the WAN port).
- On the other end of the line, it just plugged into my 16port gig switch.
- I reduced the wirless roaming aggressiveness on the 2 notebooks I have in the house (i didn't turn it off, just reduced it). This can be done thru the device manager in the advanced options for the wireless device

Result:
- My notebooks will switch from 1 router to the other depending on signal strength
- If i'm in the middle of a download/stream on my notebook, it will briefly pause and then restart when my notebook switches from 1 router to the other
- No more dead spots in my house, garage or yard! :)

Total cost: $70 bucks for the router, and a few bucks for an extra network cable. I could've used a cheaper $30-$40 G router, but I wanted to add Draft-N to my wireless network.
Total time: 5 minutes to setup the router and plug it in

[w_man]

Sweet .. I have been wanting to do this at my parents house now since my brothers have laptops and we just have too many devices wanting to connect to he net all over the house.

I'll need a switch as well as a new router but thanks for the post ... it'll make the setup a lot easier.

:thumbsup:

[brian_tr]

i'm running a similar setup at my house and find it works real well.
for me, i needed an additional router to hook up a few pieces of equipment in my computer room to my modem in the basement.
figured what the hell and added draft-n to the network
definitely wasn't an elegant experience and involved a lot of googling but everything sorted itself out with a bit of time.
DHCP settings seems to be the key to it all thinking back

now i have an N/G network upstairs for my laptop and other stuff, and i leave the original G bands open for the PS3 in the basement.

[dr_jared88]

Originally posted by w_man
Sweet .. I have been wanting to do this at my parents house now since my brothers have laptops and we just have too many devices wanting to connect to he net all over the house.

I'll need a switch as well as a new router but thanks for the post ... it'll make the setup a lot easier.

:thumbsup:

You don't need a switch. You can use the built in switch on the existing wireless router. That is unless it's just an AP with no switching module.

[adam c]

you don't need a switch but it's nice to have a decent switch

reminder this is for people who have decent knowledge of networking and computers, the average joe blow who uses computers for email and surfing the web won't have a clue what to do even with these instructions

now all you need to do, is in the setup of the routers, set the box to assign IP's based on the mac address

[dr_jared88]

Originally posted by brian_tr

DHCP settings seems to be the key to it all thinking back

Turning off DHCP on one of them is defiantly the key otherwise your gateway and IP are going to change everytime you change APs. If you leave DHCP on and set it to the exact same thing you are still going to have problems and then also create problems with your wired stuff too as some will use one router and some will use the other as the gateway causing the devices not to be able to communicate with each other.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by adam c
you don't need a switch but it's nice to have a decent switch

reminder this is for people who have decent knowledge of networking and computers, the average joe blow who uses computers for email and surfing the web won't have a clue what to do even with these instructions

now all you need to do, is in the setup of the routers, set the box to assign IP's based on the mac address

I guess i should've noted that few people need a 16pt gig switch in their house :rofl:

I ran out of ports on the original router I had, so adding a switch was the easiest thing to do. The main router I have is still the only router handing out ip addresses in the house so I didn't bother having it reserve ip addresses for the notebooks.

[w_man]

This is gold!! I was thinking this was going to take a lot of googling.


Originally posted by dr_jared88


You don't need a switch. You can use the built in switch on the existing wireless router. That is unless it's just an AP with no switching module.

I will check this out at my parents place. Thanks :thumbsup:

[adam c]

Originally posted by hampstor


I guess i should've noted that few people need a 16pt gig switch in their house :rofl:

I ran out of ports on the original router I had, so adding a switch was the easiest thing to do. The main router I have is still the only router handing out ip addresses in the house so I didn't bother having it reserve ip addresses for the notebooks.

should have gone full out and got a POE while you were at it

[benyl]

I did this long time ago... haha.

I have 3 wireless routers, one on each floor. Not a deadspot anywhere in the house.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by adam c


should have gone full out and got a POE while you were at it

Considered that, however I couldn't say no to the price on the switch I got. Besides, i've got some power injectors incase i need them down the road...


Originally posted by benyl
I did this long time ago... haha.

I have 3 wireless routers, one on each floor. Not a deadspot anywhere in the house.

I never even considered doing this until I moved my router into the basement! haha