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Multiple access points and wireless printers...

subway5411

Hey everyone,

 

Yesterday, I set up my home with 2 access points so I can get internet in the garage. We used to just be using the ISP's router for everything, and it worked fine because everything was running off one thing. Last night I went out and got myself a TP-LINK Archer C7 router as a second access point. I put the ISP's router beside the garage, so there is one access point in there, and I put the TP LINK one upstairs in the office on the other side of the house. First words: GREAT COVERAGE! Everywhere in the house is full signal strength unlike before how there were dead zones in the basement and nothing in the garage. Only one problem now. We have 2 wireless HP Printers. Both are now connected to the TP LINK router upstairs. When i'm upstairs, and on the main floor, it works as expected. When I go to the other side of the house or downstairs, the signal from the ISP's router gets stronger and it switches over to the stronger signal, but now, I cant see the printers that are connected to the TP LINK router! 

 

I'm wondering if there is a setting on the TP LINK router so I can see all printers on the network, even if i'm not connected to the upstairs access point.

 

If anyone know how to fix this, please let me know because its annoying to have to walk to the other end of the house just to print.

 

Thanks!

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Turn on bridge mode on the TP LINK and disable the DHCP service.

 

Disable the C7's DHCP server, configure the C7's LAN interface to have an IP address on the subnet your ISP's router creates, and connect the Ethernet from the ISP's router to one of the C7's LAN ports instead of the C7's WAN port (leave the C7's WAN port empty). - Copied and modified for this use case from http://superuser.com/questions/1052360/archer-c7-ac1750-bridge-mode

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Right, when I click bridge mode in the wireless config, I get all this stuff to enter

 

qezt4hs.png

 

Also make note, The TP link router is plugged into the ISPs. The ISP router comes first

 

(Not good with networking, what do I enter)

 

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Undo sorry, you don't want to bridge. I did more research do what i said in my second post.

5 minutes ago, crashahotrod said:

Disable the C7's DHCP server, configure the C7's LAN interface to have an IP address on the subnet your ISP's router creates, and connect the Ethernet from the ISP's router to one of the C7's LAN ports instead of the C7's WAN port (leave the C7's WAN port empty). - Copied and modified for this use case from http://superuser.com/questions/1052360/archer-c7-ac1750-bridge-mode

 

Edited by crashahotrod
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How do I configure it? When I go into the LAN section, all I see is this:

 

1m9R1j6.png

 

Please explain that second step in more detail, Ive never done this before lol

 

Also, Do i have to change anything on the ISPs router settings?

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I just found an emulator for your router so these screenshots should help

1st Disable Nate581f285b5.png

2nd Disable DHCP7d137f9146.png

3rd Connect to your ISP router and find it's IP address. Most of the time it's 192.168.1.1 if so set the TP link's LAN to something in the same subnet like 192.168.1.50

6c09fea0e7.png

4th connect the Ethernet cable from your ISP's router to a LAN port on the TP Link not a wan port.

5th Reboot your TP Link router

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Its fine with the delay lol, More on that LAN thing, The ISPs router is 192.168.0.1 and the C7 is 192.168.1.1

 

Do I have to change anything in LAN if its like that?

 

Or do I have to change the C7s ip to 192.168.0.50? (the third number is the subnet right? if so, that means the ISP router and the c7 were on different subnets)

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50 minutes ago, subway5411 said:

Its fine with the delay lol, More on that LAN thing, The ISPs router is 192.168.0.1 and the C7 is 192.168.1.1

 

Do I have to change anything in LAN if its like that?

 

Or do I have to change the C7s ip to 192.168.0.50? (the third number is the subnet right? if so, that means the ISP router and the c7 were on different subnets)

Depends on the subnet mask, if it was /24 for both (255.255.255.0) then they were on different subnets, if it was lower than that (/23 to /1) then they were on the same subnet.

Current Network Layout:

Current Build Log/PC:

Prior Build Log/PC:

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Ok, So do I have to change the IP in the LAN tab? Or do I just leave it at 192.168.1.1

 

(Remember the ISP router is 192.168.0.1)

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50 minutes ago, subway5411 said:

Anyone know?

 

(Sorry I have to get this done)

Yes, you'll want to set the IP addresses to match the first 3 segments.

 

So if your ISP's router is 192.168.0.1, you'll want to set the Archer C7's IP address as 192.168.0.2 (The 2 can be replaced with any free IP address, just make sure that IP Address is before the DHCP range on the ISP router - which usually starts at xxx.xxx.xxx.100).

 

Someone made a rough guide online:

https://awesometoast.com/archer-c9/

 

It's for the C9, but the C7 has similar settings. Though we've already covered just about everything in the guide.

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Well now the situation is alot worse.

 

I disabled NAT and DCHP with no problem, but when I tried to change that IP to 192.168.0.50 I get this:

 

yVUUTyF.png

 

Then I chage it to 192.168.1.50, the router restarts and now I cant access it at ALL. Entering that IP just loads a "no internet" page and tplinkwifi.net does nothing. I tried swapping the Ethernet cables to what you said to do, and now the router doesnt even show up on the network 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, subway5411 said:

Well now the situation is alot worse.

 

I disabled NAT and DCHP with no problem, but when I tried to change that IP to 192.168.0.50 I get this:

 

yVUUTyF.png

 

Then I chage it to 192.168.1.50, the router restarts and now I cant access it at ALL. Entering that IP just loads a "no internet" page and tplinkwifi.net does nothing. I tried swapping the Ethernet cables to what you said to do, and now the router doesnt even show up on the network 

 

How do you reset this thing???

I feel like you might have changed the wrong IP Address. WAN IP Address is the IP Address it gets from your "ISP", LAN IP Address is the actual physical address of the Router.

 

WAN IP Address shouldn't be set at all. You should leave it at DHCP, or disable it if there's an option. You basically want it to act as a Switch and an AP only.

 

To reset the thing, there's a reset button on the back. You'll want to read the manual for the specific sequence, but basically, you hold it down for like 10 to 30 seconds, and it'll reset all settings.

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Alright, Got it reset and its back to how I started. I did try to change the LAN IP and I get that 5008 error when I tried changing it to 192.168.0.50

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To add to this further.

 

After resetting it, do the following:

1. Log into the Web UI. Go to Network -> WAN. Ensure WAN is set to DHCP. Do not set to static, and do not give it an IP Address. If you do, it'll create a subnet, which is the reason your printer doesn't work downstairs.

c7-1.png

 

2. Go to Network -> LAN -> Set the IP Address as an Address on the same network as your ISP Router - 192.168.0.50, I believe is what you were wanting to use? Leave subnet mask as the default 255.255.255.0

c7-2.png

 

3. Under the Wireless 2.4GHz settings, match the SSID and Password settings of your ISP's router. This isn't mandatory, but it definitely helps with roaming between the networks. With the same SSID, your phone or laptop will try to connect to whichever WIFI is strongest. It's not seamless, and doesn't always work, but it's better than having to manually switch every time you go upstairs or downstairs.

 

If your ISP's router has 5GHz, do the same and match settings. In both cases, you should make sure that the 5GHz network is differently named than your 2.4GHz network:

Example:

2.4GHz SSID: Joe's WIFI 2.4

5GHz SSID: Joe's WIFI 5

Make these settings match on both routers.

 

4. Go to DHCP -> DHCP Settings -> Disablec7-3.png

 

The rest of the settings here don't matter.

 

5. Go to NAT -> Disable everything

c7-4.png

 

6. Go to Security -> Basic Security -> Disable the Firewall (Not really necessary, since you're not doing NAT, but better do it anyway just in case)

c7-5.png

 

Now, once ALL OF THIS is done, take a LAN cable (Cat 5e or higher), and connect one end to a LAN port on the ISP router, and the other end to a LAN port on the Archer C7. DO NOT CONNECT ANYTHING TO THE WAN PORT on the Archer C7.

 

Now, once all of this is done, you should still be able to access the web gui of the Router by using 192.168.0.50 in your web browser.

 

You will probably want to do step 2 last, though. Otherwise you may run into issues where you cannot connect to the router anymore.

 

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The biggest challenge with doing these kinds of setups is that once you disable DHCP and change the router's IP Address, your computer doesn't know how to connect to the router anymore, so you have to do it in the right order so that all of the other settings are set, and then you lastly change the IP Address and DHCP. So actually, I would it in the following order:

 

Step 1, Step 3, Step 5, Step 6, Step 2, then Step 4 last.

 

Sorry that I made that confusing. I was just going through the settings and not thinking about the correct order to actually change them.

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Ok, now the printers aren't even connecting. Everything else is working but the HP printer upstairs refused to connect to the network and the one downstairs connected, but is inaccessible. 

 

Update: Downstairs one works, but the upstairs one doesn't connect to the network. Both dont show up in Airprint on my phone

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14 minutes ago, subway5411 said:

Ok, now the printers aren't even connecting. Everything else is working but the HP printer upstairs refused to connect to the network and the one downstairs connected, but is inaccessible. 

 

Update: Downstairs one works, but the upstairs one doesn't connect to the network. Both dont show up in Airprint on my phone

Did you change/update the settings on the printer? You may need to redo the setup for it to connect properly.

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Ill try that, but I cant connect to the TP link router from the ISPs router again. All I did was worth nothing...

The printer says it couldn't connect even after a reset, I cant access the D link router from the second access point, and I think its the same issues with the printers again.

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Ok, did some looking and it looks like I can access the TP LINK router from everywhere INCLUDING the Ethernet ports on the ISPs router, but when I am connected to the ISP router through wireless, I cant access it. So now its looking like a wireless problem on the ISPs router. Also still cant connect the upstairs printer

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44 minutes ago, subway5411 said:

Ok, did some looking and it looks like I can access the TP LINK router from everywhere INCLUDING the Ethernet ports on the ISPs router, but when I am connected to the ISP router through wireless, I cant access it. So now its looking like a wireless problem on the ISPs router. Also still cant connect the upstairs printer

Interesting. So it sounds like the issue is the routing from the Wireless Connection on the TP-Link back to the main router. I'll have to think about that for a bit. I'll dig through the TP-Link Emulator and see if I can find what could be the issue. BTW do you have Hardware Version V1 or V2 of the C7? It should say on the product label (Or if it doesn't say, we can safely assume V1).

 

I doubt there's any differences in the WebUI between the two, but I'd rather make sure I'm using the correct emulator.

 

EDIT: Try this:

 

Go into the TP-Link WebUI

 

Go to DHCP -> DHCP Settings

 

There should be the following options:

Default Gateway: (optional)

Default Domain: (optional)

Primary DNS: (optional)

Secondary DNS: (optional)

 

Type in the IP Address of the ISP Router (192.168.0.1 I believe you said?) for the Default Gateway and for the Primary DNS. Leave Default Domain and Secondary DNS blank (Or you can set Google DNS as your Secondary as a backup: 8.8.8.8)

 

See if it works then.

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Ok, I'll give it a try later. Also, why isn't my upstairs printer connecting? When I try and connect it, it refuses to. (I forget the error)

 

All other devices connect fine so I have no idea what's wrong 

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1 hour ago, subway5411 said:

Ok, I'll give it a try later. Also, why isn't my upstairs printer connecting? When I try and connect it, it refuses to. (I forget the error)

 

All other devices connect fine so I have no idea what's wrong 

If you could get the error, that'd be great.

 

Unfortunately, if there isn't an "AP" mode built in, which a lot of routers don't have, there's sometimes a bit of tinkering to get all the settings correct.

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