Wifi Access point change SSID and password

[OllieJ_]

I've spent hours googling and farting about looking through settings, unplugging things, changing how things are connected and I'm not getting anywhere.

 

My Problem: I want to change my wifi access point's SSID and password (currently no password making my network open!).

 

My set up: I have a BT home hub 3 on one end of my house providing wifi to most of my things, and then an ethernet cable from this to the other end of the house, where it is split by a TP-Link switch, so I have an ethernet connection to my PC and an ethernet connection to a Wifi access point (something like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Laptone-LNP2603-300Mbs-WiFi-Range-Extender-Router-UK-Plug/1039746234?iid=273558485689), so my ps4, switch, phone etc can get decent wifi signal.

 

So currently the wifi access point is just called "WIFI AP", and has no password, it works just fine except that 1) anybody can access my network, and 2) I want to have the same SSID and password as the router so devices can migrate between them seamlessly (and hopefully get my google home smart speakers to play nicely together). I can get full access to my home hub through http://192.168.1.254/ as would be expected, but can't get a similar settings for the wifi access point, anybody got any advice how to do so?. 

[amusedschrodinger]

Can you post a screencap of the ui?

[brwainer]

Have you tried going to the IP of the device? (Look at your router’s DHCP lease table to find it, or if its static then it should be printed on the unit)

 

I didn’t try searching but if you really did buy a no-name chinese unit like you linked then good luck finding a manual. One of the eBay reviews mentions video guides, maybe that can help? The posting you linked says it will do WPA2, but is that exactly the one you have?

[OllieJ_]

2 minutes ago, amusedschrodinger said:

Can you post a screencap of the ui?

Which ui are you referring to?

[fabafaba]

Do you have access to your second access point/repeater? If so, please post the UI and if you don't, check th eIP adress printed on the AP and see if it's

A) within the IP-Range of your home hub (should be 192.168.1.x)

B) conflicting with your home hub

[amusedschrodinger]

The access point's settings page. What do you mean by you can't get similar settings for it?

[OllieJ_]

2 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Have you tried going to the IP of the device? (Look at your router’s DHCP lease table to find it, or if its static then it should be printed on the unit)

 

I didn’t try searching but if you really did buy a no-name chinese unit like you linked then good luck finding a manual. One of the eBay reviews mentions video guides, maybe that can help? The posting you linked says it will do WPA2, but is that exactly the one you have?

So the unit has printed on it Default IP: 192.168.10.1 going there does nothing. There are three devices in the DHCP table, one my phone, and two desktops (only 1 desktop linked to my knowledge so not sure where that's coming from) the IP's for all three don't do anything either. 

 

the access point I'm using looks exactly like the one listed, but bought from another listing which isn't available any more.

[fabafaba]

4 minutes ago, OllieJ_ said:

So the unit has printed on it Default IP: 192.168.10.1 going there does nothing

Connect your pc and the AP to your switch and disconnect everything else. Then go to your ethernet adapter settings and change your IPv4 adres to something within the 192.168.10.x range, then you should be able to acces the AP. There you'll have to turn DHCP off and give it a static IP in the 192.168.1.x range. Now you can plug everything in as you normally have, return your PCs IP adress to dynamic one and you should be able to access the AP through your regular network with its new IP.

[OllieJ_]

9 minutes ago, fabafaba said:

Do you have access to your second access point/repeater? If so, please post the UI and if you don't, check th eIP adress printed on the AP and see if it's

A) within the IP-Range of your home hub (should be 192.168.1.x)

B) conflicting with your home hub

I don't have access to the access point though any ui. the IP on the access point is 192.168.10.1 as shown in the picture, but going to there does nothing. I don't think there are any conflicts, does something in my screen shot need adjusting for it? 

[brwainer]

2 minutes ago, fabafaba said:

Connect your pc and the AP to your switch and disconnect everything else

Same as above, but I would say connect your computer directly to the AP, and turn off your wireless.

[brwainer]

1 minute ago, OllieJ_ said:

I don't have access to the access point though any ui. the IP on the access point is 192.168.10.1 as shown in the picture, but going to there does nothing. I don't think there are any conflicts, does something in my screen shot need adjusting for it? 

You can’t go directly to 192.168.10.1 from your normal IP 192.168.1.x/24 because .10.1 is outside of your subnet mask. Your computer sends all communication that isn’t within the local subnet to the “default gateway” which is called that because it is the default for anything that isn’t considered local. Your router however also doesn’t know anything about 192.168.10.1 so it doesn’t have any place to send the traffic.

 

You have to manually assign your computer an IP like 192.168.10.2 with a subnet mask of /24 AKA 255.255.255.0 - then you will be able to access the UI at 192.168.10.1

[OllieJ_]

14 minutes ago, fabafaba said:

Connect your pc and the AP to your switch and disconnect everything else. Then go to your ethernet adapter settings and change your IPv4 adres to something within the 192.168.10.x range, then you should be able to acces the AP. There you'll have to turn DHCP off and give it a static IP in the 192.168.1.x range. Now you can plug everything in as you normally have, return your PCs IP adress to dynamic one and you should be able to access the AP through your regular network with its new IP.

This gave me access to my access points UI and thus changing settings, thank you very much (and everyone else that chipped in). I think I understand how the IP address works a bit better now (brwainer's comment explained it well too).

 

THANK YOU!!!! (again), I love this community. 

[amusedschrodinger]

You can also change your AP's ip address to that of the same range as your hub so you don't have to do all of this every time you need to access your AP's settings.

[fabafaba]

Just now, amusedschrodinger said:

You can also change your AP's ip address to that of the same range as your hub so you don't have to do all of this every time you need to access your AP's settings.

 

26 minutes ago, fabafaba said:

There you'll have to turn DHCP off and give it a static IP in the 192.168.1.x range.

Read, my friend, read