Using an ADSL Router As A Switch

F1aw1ess

F1aw1ess

F1aw1ess

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Hi,

I have a mate who has got a Sky ADSL Modem/Router in his bedroom which is where the only phone socket is in the house.

He has a computer plugged in upstairs and uses one of the other ethernet ports to run a cat5 cable down through the wall into his playstation 3.

He now wants Sky Anytime+ connected and an HTPC downstairs, He's got an old 4 port adsl router that I said he could connect the wire coming from the upstairs router straight into the back of the old router and then have another 2 ethernet cables come out of it straight into the sky and the new htpc which should work (using just the switch part of the router)

However the PC is on vista and it says unidentified network and he has no internet access.

I have turned off DHCP in the downstairs router and set the IP of it so its in the same domain eg 192.168.1.100 but it still doesnt work.

Am I doing anything wrong or missing something?
 
Don't quote me on this but I don't think a router can do this without a wan port, or at least a LAN port that can be configured as a wan or virtual wan. Spent a few hours trying to get a TP link modem/router to do this last week unsuccessfully. I think some routers have the feature and some don't.

Maybe I missed the option in mine though.
 
Hello. I use a netgear dg834g in my room as a switch and wireless repeater.

To get it working i made sure to reset it to default settings with the button thing. Set up the wireless security.
Dissable DHCP then set it a static IP thats out of the range of the DHCP router its connecting too.

e.g. The main routers ip is .1.254
Its DHCP spans the range .1.64 - 1.237

I set the secondary router to the IP 1.240
Connected up the ports on the routers with a normal Cat5 cable (routers now auto sence if they should cross the port themselfs).

Plugged in a device into the second router and it worked :|


edit: Epic paint skilz diagram.
5po2nl.png


If that makes no sence then sorry please say and ill try to reword it.
 
Last edited:
Tealc said:
Don't quote me on this but I don't think a router can do this without a wan port, or at least a LAN port that can be configured as a wan or virtual wan. Spent a few hours trying to get a TP link modem/router to do this last week unsuccessfully. I think some routers have the feature and some don't.

Maybe I missed the option in mine though.
Click to expand...

You only need a WAN port if you are routing.
Simply disable the DHCP service on the router and pop a piece of tape over the WAN port and presto hey - it's a switch.

Some routers have a client isolation mode on the wired as well as the wireless so maybe this option was set on your router Tealc?
 
PistolPete said:
You only need a WAN port if you are routing.
Simply disable the DHCP service on the router and pop a piece of tape over the WAN port and presto hey - it's a switch.

Some routers have a client isolation mode on the wired as well as the wireless so maybe this option was set on your router Tealc?
Click to expand...

Well I did say don't quote me.

I know it should work simply but the TP-Link's interface confuses the bejesus out of me. In the end I gave up. I only wanted to use the Sky router just as a modem and the TP-Link as the Wireless access point and main router. Maybe I will look at it again.
 
lol love the epic pic.

yes thats basically what im trying to do altough because i disabled the dhcp maybe vista being vista didnt identify the network because of that.

I'll re-enable dhcp from 192.168.1.175 - 195 so they dont conflict and retry.

cheers for your inputs lads much apprecaited, will post back if it works ok

:)
 
First, go to 192.168.1.XX (Whatever the main upstairs router is) and change the DHCP range to 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.200


Factory reset the second router then

Go to http://192.168.XX.XX (Whatever the second routers IP address is) and change the following;

Lan IP address : 192.168.1.XX (If the main router is .1, then put this as .2)

Then disable DHCP on the second router

Apply all settings

Plug a cable between the two routers and hey presto, you should be able to access the internet/LAN from both wireless's and both lan ports

You should now be able to browse to 192.168.1.XX and get both of the routers status pages.

You can now set up your wireless settings on the second router.
 
Ryan111 said:
First, go to 192.168.1.XX (Whatever the main upstairs router is) and change the DHCP range to 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.200


Factory reset the second router then

Go to http://192.168.XX.XX (Whatever the second routers IP address is) and change the following;

Lan IP address : 192.168.1.XX (If the main router is .1, then put this as .2)

Then disable DHCP on the second router

Apply all settings

Plug a cable between the two routers and hey presto, you should be able to access the internet/LAN from both wireless's and both lan ports

You should now be able to browse to 192.168.1.XX and get both of the routers status pages.

You can now set up your wireless settings on the second router.
Click to expand...

Thanks but that is exactly what I done, the Vista machine downstairs does not recognise the network.

I'm assuming because DHCP is off on the downstairs router.
 
The machine downstairs should not be getting DHCP from the router downstairs, it should be getting it from the router upstairs. Have you tried doing a ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew after setting everything up?
 
did you check what ip settings your getting on the pc downstairs ?

as long as theres a dHCP server anywhere on your network, it should be able to get the correct settings.

as long so you dont have multiple giving out different information.

also, have your tried pinging your primary router from the pc downstairs ?

finally, have you made sure that both routers are set to different ips ?
by default a lot of routers are set to the same ip
 
yes ive tried to get the vista machine to collect the ip address from the upstairs router but it just comes up unidentified network and doesnt collect it, the two routers are on different ip's but in the same subnet.

im assuming its something to do with Vista because im sure i have the routers setup correctly.

im seeing the chap tonight so will set both routers as dhcp servers but set them to give out different ip address sets so there is no conflict and post back.

cheers for all your help :)
 
F1aw1ess said:
yes ive tried to get the vista machine to collect the ip address from the upstairs router but it just comes up unidentified network and doesnt collect it, the two routers are on different ip's but in the same subnet.

im assuming its something to do with Vista because im sure i have the routers setup correctly.

im seeing the chap tonight so will set both routers as dhcp servers but set them to give out different ip address sets so there is no conflict and post back.

cheers for all your help :)
Click to expand...

using both DHCP servers wont work, even if they give out ips on the same subnet, they wont give out the correct DNS/Gateway settings.

most routers will give out thier own ip as the gateway/dns settings.
so any pc that gets an ip from the second router will try to go via that when getting online, which wont work, coz it wont have a connection.

some routers do have settings to override this, but most of the time is best to just disable it.

on your vista machine, open a command prompt and type ipconfig /all
then show us the output from that
 
F1aw1ess said:
yes ive tried to get the vista machine to collect the ip address from the upstairs router but it just comes up unidentified network and doesnt collect it, the two routers are on different ip's but in the same subnet.

im assuming its something to do with Vista because im sure i have the routers setup correctly.

im seeing the chap tonight so will set both routers as dhcp servers but set them to give out different ip address sets so there is no conflict and post back.

cheers for all your help :)
Click to expand...


No only one router should have DHCP on, over wise your not going to get the correct routing going on.

Step 1: Setup so that the Sky Router is the only router. Make sure everything works.

Step 2: Plug in secondary router into a pc on it's own on the ethernet port. Configure it to be outside the ip range of the Sky router DHCP, ie set dhcp range to 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.253 and set the secondary router to have an ip address of 192.168.1.2.

Step 3: Turn off the DHCP on the secondary router, and all firewall settings etc (since they will be a waste of resources).

Step 4: Unplug pc connected to secondary router. Take that plug and stick it in the any of the ethernet ports on the Sky router.

Now you should be able to connect to the secondary router and receive the settings with no issue.


However, if you still can't receive the settings, assume it's the Sky router is the issue. The Netgear I (dg834gt) had was giving me a headache since it wouldn't assign an ip to my DS, the newer firmware was the problem.
 
im not there at the moment to try it but when just the upstairs router is set as the dhcp server i get an exclamation over the network icon and after a while it gives out a private address range of 169.x.x.x
 
F1aw1ess said:
im not there at the moment to try it but when just the upstairs router is set as the dhcp server i get an exclamation over the network icon and after a while it gives out a private address range of 169.x.x.x
Click to expand...

You need to release the current settings on that pc, sometimes it ignores the packets. Easiest way if you don't want to type into cmd, is to pull the cable or disable the port.
 
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