TP Link Wifi Extender setup problem

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 10:42

Hi

I've got myself a TL-WA850RE wifi extender to give better wifi coverage upstairs in my house.

I quickly set it up on Friday using wps which seemed to work fine until this morning when various devices were having issues whereby al though they were connected to the wifi they had no internet access.

After a quick look on the devices I realised that the issue was that they had been given incorrect IP addresses. Instead of 192.168.1.xx they had been given 192.168.0.xx addresses.

A quick google showed this to be a fairly common problem and one that needs to be addressed by manually setting the extender up.

I read that I should give it a static IP address and tinker with the DCHP settings on the extender. The advice I've read on what to do with the DCHP has varied a bit. some places saying to disable it, overs saying to set the gateway and dns servers to the address of my router.

This morning I set the IP to static and disabled the DCHP and now I cant get logged into the extender. I know I have to connect to the extender's wifi to be able to connect to it but when I try to connect it fails to authenticate and obtain an IP address and hence I can't then connect to the extender to try any other settings. So now I'm not sure what to do.

Has anyone else set on of these up successfully or got any advice on the best way to set it up?

mrkev · 11 Apr 2016 at 15:37

Is the RE light on? If not on you may need to reset the device and start again. It is recommended to only have one DHCP server on the network but if that doesn't work, and you router allows, you can split the range between the two, e.g. set DHCP range to 192.168.1.10-120 on your router and 192.168.1.121-250 on your range extender. The router will always be default gateway and most probably the DNS as well. Also make sure that the RE has a good signal to the router.

Orcvader · 11 Apr 2016 at 15:53

Factory reset the extender, then when you're able to access the settings again, when you turn off DHCP, be sure to assign the extender a static IP, this will be the IP you will enter in your browser to access the AP.

When you also turn off the DHCP, there should be an option to enter gateway settings, the IP being the router's IP, subnet (which should on default be 255.255.255.0), and DNS (either the router's IP again, or something like Google's 8.8.8.8). This will allow devices connected to the AP to know how to communicate to the router to obtain an IP address.

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 16:51

mrkev said:
Is the RE light on? If not on you may need to reset the device and start again. It is recommended to only have one DHCP server on the network but if that doesn't work, and you router allows, you can split the range between the two, e.g. set DHCP range to 192.168.1.10-120 on your router and 192.168.1.121-250 on your range extender. The router will always be default gateway and most probably the DNS as well. Also make sure that the RE has a good signal to the router.

I'm pretty sure the RE light was on. That's what I was thinking, just use the DCHP server of the router, hence turning it off on the extender.

Orcvader said:
Factory reset the extender, then when you're able to access the settings again, when you turn off DHCP, be sure to assign the extender a static IP, this will be the IP you will enter in your browser to access the AP.

When you also turn off the DHCP, there should be an option to enter gateway settings, the IP being the router's IP, subnet (which should on default be 255.255.255.0), and DNS (either the router's IP again, or something like Google's 8.8.8.8). This will allow devices connected to the AP to know how to communicate to the router to obtain an IP address.

You see that's pretty much what I have done. I set the IP address to static, then the extender rebooted.

I got logged in again, and turned the DCHP off and set the router's address as the gateway and again it rebooted and then I couldn't access the extender and I couldn't get an IP address when connecting through the extender's wifi.

I shall reset it this evening and see if I can get it working.

Orcvader · 11 Apr 2016 at 16:56

valve90210 said:
You see that's pretty much what I have done. I set the IP address to static, then the extender rebooted.

I got logged in again, and turned the DCHP off and set the router's address as the gateway and again it rebooted and then I couldn't access the extender and I couldn't get an IP address when connecting through the extender's wifi.

I shall reset it this evening and see if I can get it working.

It may be better to use a PC connected directly to the router instead of the AP when you're accessing the AP. Alternatively, set a static IP on the PC instead. That way if anything goes wrong you can still access the AP without relying on the router's DHCP server.

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 17:03

Yeah, that's what I saw mentioned on the TPlink website, I shall bare that in mind.

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 19:16

I have just wasted over an hour trying to set this poxy thing up and I'm no nearer any sort of success.

I connected to my PC via a network lead, reset the extender, set it up to have a static IP address, put in the connection details of my router. And nothing.

My router wouldn't accept that it's a static IP address and kept either giving it a dynamic address or would give it a static IP address but not the one I've set on the extender. (I've set static IP addresses on other devices and never had this problem so I'm thinking it' most likely not the router that's causing the problem.

For one brief moment it did connect to the router correctly but the extender was still reporting that it had no internet access.

switching off the DHCP of the extender didn't help at all.

I've tried all sorts and it just seems to be a complete waste of time as nothing is working.

I even tried resetting and connecting to the router using WPS as I had done previously and that didn't work either. Think I'm going to give it up as a pointless exercise. I'll just have to wait until I can run a network lead upstairs and set up an old router as an access point.

Orcvader · 11 Apr 2016 at 19:21

If you don't mind, could you perhaps post a screenshot of the router DHCP page, and the TP-Link settings? No need to show the wireless settings.

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 19:43

Give me a little while, got to put my little man to bed in a mo

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 20:50

Ok,. I've had to reset the extender again and I can't get it to do anything useful now.

These are my router DCHP settings:

These are the settings pages for the extender:

LAN:

This I have previously filled in to be a static address (192.168.1.50) on the same subnet as my router.

DCHP Page

I can only access these settings if I switch the DHCP server to on. I have done this and entered the gateway and DNS to be my router (192.168.1.254). I tried switching the DHCP server on setting these settings then turning it back off, neither worked.

When I've set the IP to be static it shows up incorrectly in the device list on my router...

Sorry for the mega sized text on the extender settings pages, they're screen grabs from my phone

Orcvader · 11 Apr 2016 at 21:58

Looks like 254 and 253 is already taken.

I assume when you turn DHCP off everything gets greyed out? Or does the default gateway, domain, dns stay editable?

EDIT: Derp, properly read the bottom. Just to make sure, the wireless extender is connected to the router right?

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:05

It has at times yes, though it's not seeing that the router has internet access...

Just trying it again. I've reset the extender and have added the router's wifi connection. It's now restarting...

Orcvader · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:10

Might be worth moving the extender a little closer to the router as well, even if the TP is using it's own DHCP server with a different set of IPs, it should at least be able to provide internet access.

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:11

Ok it's restartred. now on the status page for the extender it's saying wireless connection is connected

but under type is has "Dynamic IP(failed)"

on my router's device page the extender is listed as inactive and with a static IP address (which is probably due to me trying to get it to work earlier.

I can't see any way of changing it to an active device...

edit: there's a good signal fromt he router on the extender. can log into the extender by setting static ip on my phone but have no internet...

edit 2: Just looked on a different page on the router and the extender isn't listed there, guess the first list I looked at is all device that have been connected..

Orcvader · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:16

For now leave the IP as dynamic on the TP. Seems the issue might be on the router side. Try see if there's an option to reset the LAN/DHCP settings, or just factory reset it.

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:19

Can't see any options to reset lan or DHCP on the router...

Will factory resetting my router mess up all my IP settings? ie all the fixed DHCP addresses of all my devices?

Orcvader · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:23

It will do, but only if you've set the static IPs on the router side (which honestly you shouldn't). Ideally you want the static IPs to be done on the client side.

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:29

They're not static IPs , they're devices which are always given the same IP, only got one static I think, which is set on the device.

I've restarted the router and it seems the extender is now being recognised...

and it seems to have internet access too

valve90210 · 11 Apr 2016 at 22:44

Just noticed my genius of a router has given the wireless extender the same ip address as my phone...

Right, that's now sorted with another reboot of the router and making sure my phone was connected before I plugged in the extender.

Extender now has it's own ip address which I have told the router to always give it.

Orcvader · 12 Apr 2016 at 09:27

valve90210 said:
Extender now has it's own ip address which I have told the router to always give it.

Is that by assigning the MAC addess to that IP on the router side?

Usually there's a leased time on DHCP server to assign that particular device a certain IP address, so that IP is reserved for that device for a certain amount of time.