2 Routers same IP address help...

OLIVER BIRD · 23 Apr 2020 at 09:22

Hello all,

Im new here so please excuse any errors I may make or have made.

Completely new to this and have made a boobie already.

So I have Virgin fiber in my home, I have a garage at the top of my garden that I have converted to a gym / motorbike garage with Smart TV in there. So I wanted to extend the wifi range, I had an old Router that I did a bit of homework with and realised I could use this to extend the range by connecting an ethernet cable between.

So I connected the additional router to a laptop and entered the settings and changed the IP address, but by mistake i changed the IP address to the same IP as the original! Now when i plug it in I think they are conflicting each other.

Can I change the IP address on the additional router without messing up the original?

I was quite impressed running the ethernet cable etc making a tidy job to mess this vital part up!

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Ollie

Quartz · 23 Apr 2020 at 09:40

Just unplug the second router from the first and plug your laptop directly into it to change the IP address. While you're at it, make sure it's giving a completely different IP range to your other router. E.g. if your Virgin router is giving 192.168.1.xxx change your second router to 192.168.100.xxx. You may find that it has default ranges of 172.16.xxx.yyy which is also good.

pepp77 · 23 Apr 2020 at 09:55

If you are just using the second router as a wifi access point then you will want to give it an IP address in the same subnet as the main router (My main is 192.168.250.1 and my secondary router doing extra wifi upstairs is 192.168.250.254). Then you want to plug the second router into the first by connecting a cable to one of its LAN ports (do not use the WAN port for this type of setup).

OLIVER BIRD · 23 Apr 2020 at 10:50

Thank you both,

Sorry complete newbie, so I can access all the settings through internet explorer without the second router being connected to the first.

@pepp77 why 254 instead of just 192.168.250.2 for instance?

So if i do this i dont need to change any other settings just that one IP address.

pepp77 · 23 Apr 2020 at 10:51

No reason, just used the first IP for the main router and the last one for the second one.

OLIVER BIRD · 23 Apr 2020 at 10:51

Yes im purely using this second router to extend the WIFI range, as my garage is insulated also so blocks out quite a lot of signal.

OLIVER BIRD · 23 Apr 2020 at 10:53

OLIVER BIRD said:
Yes im purely using this second router to extend the WIFI range, as my garage is insulated also so blocks out quite a lot of signal.

Brilliant, I will give this a go this afternoon. I was worried about messing up the original router so stopped and unplugged it.

Janesy B · 24 Apr 2020 at 23:45

You'll want to set the second router into bridging mode if possible, and just have it obtain an IP address automatically from your main router.

'daisy chaining' two routers together causes a double-nat scenario which may cause issues.

bremen1874 · 25 Apr 2020 at 00:29

True, but not applicable if you're configuring the second router as an access point.

pepp77 · 25 Apr 2020 at 06:23

Janesy B said:
You'll want to set the second router into bridging mode if possible, and just have it obtain an IP address automatically from your main router.

'daisy chaining' two routers together causes a double-nat scenario which may cause issues.

only if you connect from the lan port of the first to the wan port of the second, and you should only do that if you know what you are doing.