Adding second router

[Jmangum]

Hey there everyone!

 

I am relatively new to the forum and have so far had an amazing experience and such wonderful advice from so many amazing people! If you have seen any of my other posts, I recently moved into my girlfriends house and am trying to bring the tech up a notch on all fronts 

 

I am here trying to start my next project, installing a second router in the home. ( the first router is installed upstairs that is in my currently being built game room, 3 tv with 4x4 switch set up, two televisions in the two other bedrooms up there, and normally two phones/iPads/laptops and such at night). Downstairs is where we spend most of the day with a single tv and phones and iPads and other such stuff. I am looking to install s second router down here so the devices downstairs can connect to the downstairs router, and upstairs will connect to upstairs. I also just called att to boost our signal from 24 to 75 mbs.

 

So I am trying to install a new one down here and need advice on 1. What to use, 2. How to physically set it up. 3. How to wirelessly set it up to make connections most efficient.

 

 

From a recent office move I recovered the following:

 

linksys ea9200

motorolla surfboard sbg6580 (with time warner sticker on it, I think that's who we have in our office, not sure)

motorolla surfboardsb6141.

 

can I use any of these To accomplish my goals? If so, how? 

 

If not? Can you recommend a new product for me to buy/ assist with set up if I can't get past instructions lol.

 

Thank you all for your help in advance and if you have any questions or clarifications on what I'm trying to accomplish, please let me know!

 

I appreciate all your help and advice again and thank you!!!

[Enderman]

You plug the second router into the first router and that's it.

[Cree340]

I'd recommend you buy an access point. It usually has better WiFi performance because it is made specifically for wireless access. A decent choice would be a Ubiquiti Unifi AC-Pro. Connect that to your existing router and set the same SSID and password. You should be able to roam between the linksys router and the AP as the signal gets weaker from one to the other. Also make sure you use different wireless channels for both (i.e. one using channel 11/36 and the other using channel 1/149). 

 

Edit: I re-read your post, and seeing that you already have an ea9200, you could use that as well instead of an AP. Just enable something like bridge mode, disable DHCP and connect it to your existing router and set the same SSID and password.

[heimdali]

Use cables whenever you can, that works much better than wireless.

 

Other than that, what Enderman said.  It sounds like you don´t want/need another router.

 

Ubiquity makes good stuff, but it is useless because they don´t have documentation, unless their access points are different from their routers.

 

[Jmangum]

6 hours ago, Cree340 said:

I'd recommend you buy an access point. It usually has better WiFi performance because it is made specifically for wireless access. A decent choice would be a Ubiquiti Unifi AC-Pro. Connect that to your existing router and set the same SSID and password. You should be able to roam between the linksys router and the AP as the signal gets weaker from one to the other. Also make sure you use different wireless channels for both (i.e. one using channel 11/36 and the other using channel 1/149). 

 

Edit: I re-read your post, and seeing that you already have an ea9200, you could use that as well instead of an AP. Just enable something like bridge mode, disable DHCP and connect it to your existing router and set the same SSID and password.

So can you briefly explain the front to back process of that? I would find a coaxial port somewhere downstairs( or Ethernet but I don't think there is one) and plug it in, power it up. And from there can you explain the rest? 

 

The issue is that a tech guy previously set the house up before I moved in (about a year ago when girlfriend did) and the router upstairs has all but one port filled) not sure where they go or what is going on with them, but don't want to rehire him or figure it out)

 

i thiught the easiest solution would be to set up a router downstairs and connect the tv and all phones to that network rather than the upstairs one, thus granting better speeds downstairs and upstairs because not as many devices will be connected.

 

Thank you again for your advice and help so far! Hopefully I can get this done tomorrow no sweat! 

[bcguru9384]

6 hours ago, Jmangum said:

Hey there everyone!

 

I am relatively new to the forum and have so far had an amazing experience and such wonderful advice from so many amazing people! If you have seen any of my other posts, I recently moved into my girlfriends house and am trying to bring the tech up a notch on all fronts 

 

I am here trying to start my next project, installing a second router in the home. ( the first router is installed upstairs that is in my currently being built game room, 3 tv with 4x4 switch set up, two televisions in the two other bedrooms up there, and normally two phones/iPads/laptops and such at night). Downstairs is where we spend most of the day with a single tv and phones and iPads and other such stuff. I am looking to install s second router down here so the devices downstairs can connect to the downstairs router, and upstairs will connect to upstairs. I also just called att to boost our signal from 24 to 75 mbs.

 

So I am trying to install a new one down here and need advice on 1. What to use, 2. How to physically set it up. 3. How to wirelessly set it up to make connections most efficient.

 

 

From a recent office move I recovered the following:

 

linksys ea9200

motorolla surfboard sbg6580 (with time warner sticker on it, I think that's who we have in our office, not sure)

motorolla surfboardsb6141.

 

can I use any of these To accomplish my goals? If so, how? 

 

If not? Can you recommend a new product for me to buy/ assist with set up if I can't get past instructions lol.

 

Thank you all for your help in advance and if you have any questions or clarifications on what I'm trying to accomplish, please let me know!

 

I appreciate all your help and advice again and thank you!!!

are you on cable internet?

if yes then ask isp if they can add one of the modems to your account then just plug free newly authored modem in like normal in downstairs free coax port

or look into MOCA as you may be able to use that as well if they devices are compliant

you can do wifi connect then set wifi to share its internet then bridge lan to wifi on laptop or desktop then send lan to routers wan(see bing sharing wifi thru ethernet) and you mayeven be able to just wifi to upstairs then turn on hostednetworking(slower and less clients but takes just few clicks)bing. hostednetworking

by far easiest way will be setting dhcp range limits that do not overlap and ethernet from upstairs to downstairs routers wan port

[Cree340]

2 hours ago, Jmangum said:

So can you briefly explain the front to back process of that? I would find a coaxial port somewhere downstairs( or Ethernet but I don't think there is one) and plug it in, power it up. And from there can you explain the rest? 

 

The issue is that a tech guy previously set the house up before I moved in (about a year ago when girlfriend did) and the router upstairs has all but one port filled) not sure where they go or what is going on with them, but don't want to rehire him or figure it out)

 

i thiught the easiest solution would be to set up a router downstairs and connect the tv and all phones to that network rather than the upstairs one, thus granting better speeds downstairs and upstairs because not as many devices will be connected.

 

Thank you again for your advice and help so far! Hopefully I can get this done tomorrow no sweat! 

If you can, always try to use ethernet as the backhaul between the current main router and the, to be added, wifi router/access point. MoCA would also be a decent alternative seeing that you have coax throughout the house. 

 

Take the Linksys EA9200 and you'll need to disable all of its routing / NAT / DHCP features, since we want it to be as transparent as possible. This way, your devices will mostly automatically connect to it without any extra configuration. You want to place that Linksys in an area where the existing WiFi router has a weak signal. This way you'll have the best speeds, upstairs and downstairs (your device will just connect to what's strongest [most of the time]). After just configure the WiFi name/SSID to be exactly the same as what you're using right now (its case-sensitive) and also its password and security settings (i.e. WPA2 Personal, WPA/WPA2 Personal [AES + TKIP], etc).

 

I can't really explain every step because I personally have last fiddled with consumer class routers many years ago and am completely unfamiliar with whatever Linksys' current web interface is like to be honest. But I assume there should be an option within the web interface of the Linksys where you can disable the features I've listed above. After that, just plug an ethernet cable, either directly between the WAN port of the Linksys ea9200 and one of the LAN ports on the existing WiFi Router, or plug an ethernet cable between a LAN port of the existing WiFi Router to the MoCA adapter, plug that into a coax outlet in the house and do that same thing with the Linksys ea9200 but with plugging it into the WAN port instead. 

 

It shouldn't be too complicated to accomplish, it'll definitely take way less time and effort that building a PC. Hopefully the Linksys router allows you to use it essentially as an AP + switch. 

[Jmangum]

Awesome! Thanks guys for all your help! 

[daysend]

On 10/28/2017 at 5:42 PM, Cree340 said:

I'd recommend you buy an access point. It usually has better WiFi performance because it is made specifically for wireless access. A decent choice would be a Ubiquiti Unifi AC-Pro. Connect that to your existing router and set the same SSID and password. You should be able to roam between the linksys router and the AP as the signal gets weaker from one to the other. Also make sure you use different wireless channels for both (i.e. one using channel 11/36 and the other using channel 1/149). 

 

Edit: I re-read your post, and seeing that you already have an ea9200, you could use that as well instead of an AP. Just enable something like bridge mode, disable DHCP and connect it to your existing router and set the same SSID and password.

3

To clarify - a Router is somewhat different from an Access Point(AP) A router is usually actually a combination of multiple things. The router you have is probably a mix of a modem(to pull in data from the internet), a router(that creates a local data, and assigns IP addresses to devices so everyone doesn't get all the data packets), an AP(which sends out data wirelessly), and a switch(the ports on the back of your router that lets you send data from computer to computer without an internet connection). This TechQuickie episode explains it well: