Help with multiple router setup

[Jay_t]

Hi folks,

I am helping my brother with his home network and would love some help getting this sorted. He has a big house and needs to get a wireless signal to all parts of the house.

At the moment he has a Netgear DGN2000 ADSL router connected to the phone socket on the ground floor. He has a Belkin Enhanced Wireless N150 cable router on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors. The cable routers are all wired into the ADSL router and are broadcasting a wireless signal.

The problem is that each of the routers is basically providing its own network and the various machines can't talk to each other. My brother does not want to use wireless range extenders as he wants to utilise the network cabling that runs throughout the house.

So, how can we use the existing equipment to create 1 simple network with all the machines able to talk to each other?

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[edscdk]

if all the machines can get to the internet then there is no reason they cannot see each other... have you tried pinging between machines?

 

[Jay_t]

Thanks for the quick reply.

The machines are all on the internet, but each of the cable routers has essentially created its own network. For example, when you scan for wireless you can see networks called "second floor", "third floor", etc.

We need to have only one network for the whole house.

 

[edscdk]

so the real question is how can you merge mutiple SSID's into one big wireless network...? (which I was wondering about myself... so dont know the answer to, im guessing its a feature on the router and you need several of the same make)

 

[Vampyre]

So you want each router just to act as a wireless access point? Give each of the routers an IP address outside of the Netgear's normal DHCP range (mine is set up as 192.168.1.13, where DHCP range is 192.168.1.20 to 192.168.1.255) and turn off DHCP on the three cable routers. You can set the SSID of all four routers to the same if you wish, but try to make sure that the four routers are on different channels.

That should do it, but if not then a google for 'using a router as a Wireless Access Point' should get you more comprehensive instructions.

Hope that helps!

 

[dekez]

Hey I've just done a similar thing in my house.

You need to have only one router as the DHCP server, and the others as access points.
I did this on mine by having one modem router connected to WAN, and on the other router I turned DHCP off and connected it to the network via its LAN connection, not the WAN, effectively using it as a switch and a wireless access point. I still have 2 wireless networks to connect to, but they are on the same network eg 192.168.1

I don't know if it is possible to have one wireless "cloud" with several routers as I think they would interfere with each other unless they have that feature. I'd be interested to know that as well.

edit: Yes I forgot like Vampyre said you have to change the IP of the routers as well (mine did it automatically)