Which router will work as a wired AND wireless range extender?

Alasdairhurst

Alasdairhurst

Alasdairhurst

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West Yorkshire
The VM superhub is downstairs, and i have one 50m cable running through the walls of the house behind the scenes into my room, the problem is that there is no wireless signal in my room, and a number of extra wired ports would be useful for laptops and other stuff.

The first thing i looked into was a wireless range extender, however that uses up the only cable that goes into the room, leaving nothing for the PC (wireless is not an option at 12.5MB/s DL speed)

Since the house wiring is pretty old, it is also not a good idea to gamble with speeds from powerline as i have a decent cable.

i have looked at this : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-204-NG&groupid=46&catid=1837&subcat=

which seems to be perfect for what i want, but the price is a little high. (budget is around £30) and some reviews weren't that cracking

the other option i saw was using another router to do the same task, but i've heard that some routers don't support being used this way.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-063-AS&groupid=46&catid=1596&subcat=

this one is a nice price, but the website says "*This product does not support universal repeater mode." which seems to be what i want.

anyone got any recommendations, or can i indeed use this router for that purpose?
 
The WNR2000 you linked is a router. If any given router doesn't have a specific mode to disable NAT and DHCP you can do it manually, google 'Double NAT' for info on that.

I don't know if linking to Amazon is allowed, so go to Amazon and search 'cable router'. The TP-Link for £20 will probably be fine (haven't used it personally, not a guarantee).
 
If you have a network cable available then you just need an access point to plug into the end of it.

Access points with extra wired network ports aren't that common so you'd probably be better off reconfiguring a wireless router.

The instructions have been repeated many times in this forum, and Googling 'router as access point' will also provide the information required. It's basically this:-

  • Configure it with a suitable management IP address.
  • Disable DHCP
  • Configure the wireless as necessary.
  • Connect it using one of the LAN ports (ignore WAN ports completely).
 
Thanks guys, so basically i can go with any wireless router (with an Ethernet "internet" input) and reconfigure it?

I've seen the instructions and stuff, just making 100% sure that if i get a specific wireless router that it will actually work. :)

i'm guessing that the TP link one is about the same functionality as the Asus one i linked? If so i'l go with the Asus as it's cheap ATM and looks much nicer :D
 
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By "internet" i mean the yellow ethernet port on the left:
NW-204-NG_48903_350.jpg


i have another ADSL modem router lying around but the "internet" input is not ethernet so this won't work?


Oh, ok you're saying that i just use one of the rightmost ports to the superhub and work from there?
 
You DON'T use the WAN port!

You connect one of the LAN ports to the rest of the network. An ADSL router will work for this just as well as a Ethernet/cable router.

The rest of the LAN ports can be used to connect other wired devices.
 
Guys, I got it and it's all set up out of the box (there was an option at the start which automatically set it up as a repeater) however i am losing around 20mb/s download and 1mb/s upload speed through the WIRED connection. Should this really happen? My max speed at the moment is around 84/104mb/s DL and 8/9mb/s UL. The router is rated at 300mb/s
 
What have you bought?

Terminology does vary a bit, but I don't think you should have configured it as a repeater. As there's a cable in place I'd have been looking to configure it as an access point.
 
That router has a proper access point mode so it should be possible to connect it to the rest of the network using either the WAN port or one of the LAN ports.

If you're connected using the WAN port you could still be limited by its WAN-to-LAN routing performance even if it isn't really doing any routing.

There don't appear to be any published figures for the routing performance, but it's obviously going to be limited to no more than 100mbps.
 
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