networking Networking help!

[Hashil]

Ok so I'm having a little trouble here. I have 3 routers in the house. 2 Razer Sila routers and 1 Virgin media router. The Virgin media router is the main as it acts as the gateway to the internet. There is a PC that is wired to this router. 

 

The first Sila is based in the attic where we have 2 xbox one x's for myself and my brother connected. We game on this daily. There is also a Philips hue bridge attached to this router.

 

The second Sila router is based lower down in the house and closer to the garden as we need access to WiFi in the garder, in the shed which is further back and to the solar panes. The second router is also the one that everyone who visits and who isn't gaming connects to. There is a Sonos Bridge connected to this router. I have included an image with this post to visually demonstrate the connections that i have just described.

 

Now my issue it that when i'm connected to Razer router 1, (refer to image)  i cannot control the Sonos speakers and if I'm connected to the Razer router 2, i can't control the Philips hue lights. The PC that is connected to the Virgin router can't control the Sonos bridge either. there isn't a Philips hue app for windows (not that I'm aware of) so that doesn't matter but it 100% needs to be able to play music on the Sonos speakers. 

 

How can i get all these routers to work together so it doesn't matter which one you are connected to? I want to be able to control the Hue lights from any router or even play my music on the Sonos speakers regardless of which router I'm connected to. The main reason for this implementation is to be able to control everything from the IPads that I have mounted onto the wall as my multimedia control centre. 

 

 

 

[Hashil]

2 minutes ago, PrinceNorris said:

Protip: do not write W sideways when other letter is E. Don't write sideways at all. Are Razers set up as switches or APs? Do you get a response from pinging both routers?

Thanks for the tips.Ill bare that in mind for the next time i have to create one (hopefully not anytime soon). 

No setup has actually been done. So they are acting as switches (as far as i know). They have their own SSIDs and i can control what device has higher priority than other devices. I have not tried pinging the routers. 

[YaBoiWill]

Might be a stupid suggestion, but make sure that they are all giving out IP's in the same range like 192.169.x.x, 172.x.x.x or 10.x.x.x If they are using different ones then you won't be able to see the other devices. IDK how that really works but it works for my guest network using a different range of ips to my main. 

Make sure that the razor routers are not acting as DHCP servers and are getting their allocations from the virgin media hub, otherwise two devices in the house might get the same ip which will cause problems. 

I have no experience with razor routers so I can't suggest a way to make sure that they are extending a network. 

 

[Hashil]

11 minutes ago, YaBoiWill said:

Might be a stupid suggestion, but make sure that they are all giving out IP's in the same range like 192.169.x.x, 172.x.x.x or 10.x.x.x If they are using different ones then you won't be able to see the other devices. IDK how that really works but it works for my guest network using a different range of ips to my main. 

Make sure that the razor routers are not acting as DHCP servers and are getting their allocations from the virgin media hub, otherwise two devices in the house might get the same ip which will cause problems. 

I have no experience with razor routers so I can't suggest a way to make sure that they are extending a network. 

 

There is no such thing as a stupid suggestion. just simple checks. The IPs match so they are both 192.168.x.xx/xx. I have not checked the DHCP settings. i will make sure this isnt the case as soon as i can but im sure it isnt. Currently at work so will have to do this later on. thanks for the tips. 

Razer has an app that lets you have full control of the router on the phone so some checks can be done simply through that.

 

[YaBoiWill]

so razer says that the sila's can act as the router in a network, but not a modem. this might be where the problem lies where you have a double NAT on the network. I assume that they can both be put into bridge mode but still use all of the features as before 

Try it out and see 

[Jay Deah]

basically youll want to use the virgin router as a router (ie it can send data from LAN to WAN) and the other devices as switches/access points. different devices have different ways of achieving this.

 

usually something as simple as disabling DHCP on the Razer and ensuring you connect it to the virgin box via a LAN port on the back should do the trick.

 

this way your internal network is one flat switched network without routing so broadcast traffic will flow to all devices, and for internet access you are routed via the virgin router.

 

the reason things done work internally at the moment is you have 2 different LANs set up (broadcast domains) and traffic that relies on broadcast traffic will not pass between the 2

[Hashil]

1 hour ago, YaBoiWill said:

so razer says that the sila's can act as the router in a network, but not a modem. this might be where the problem lies where you have a double NAT on the network. I assume that they can both be put into bridge mode but still use all of the features as before 

Try it out and see 

thanks man. ill give it ago if all else doesnt work

[B-Monster]

So, just echoing what others may have said here, this is my first post so go easy on me.

When you use the term "router" that identifies a device that translates one network over to another.  Typically not best practice to have multiple routers in one network unless you want to segregate the network for one reason or another...for a home setup, this really isn't necessary.

Your Virgin device should be configured as the router, and as the DHCP host.  Say, for example it's configured as 192.168.0.1/24 and will dole out IP addresses.  Your other two are just setup as switches.  You can configure each of these as 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.3 with their gateway and DNS settings configured to go through 192.168.0.1 and DHCP disabled on them (since 192.168.0.1 will be handling that).  192.168.0.1 would be configured to assign DHCP addresses from 192.168.0.10 (would be a good starting point for home)-192.168.0.254, gateway setup as 192.168.0.1 and DNS set up to whatever flavour of DNS you want to use (I like using 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 which is Google's DNS servers and rarely have issues, but that's just my preference).  Your external interface (WAN) would be configured with whatever your ISP provides.

You can also name your wireless access points with the same SSID.  This way, if your device goes out of range of one AP, it will be picked up by another.  You can also give the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz the same SSID and authentication key so if a device can use 5Ghz, it will, and if the signal isn't strong enough for 5Ghz, it will switch over to 2.4Ghz.

[TheSpaceOtter]

Sounds like they are on different networks, you only have one SSID for your entire network right?

If you have to manually switch yourself over from one Razer sila to another then that's probably your issue.

Other's have already suggested this, make sure you have the 2 Sila's set up as AP's pointing back to your main router. ( basically make sure the Sila's don't give out IP's )