Router help needed.

[k1ng_alex]

I am currently at college and sadly my room has no wifi coverage it only has one ethernet jack with the following setup. 

POE jack which goes into a cisco ip phone, the phone has two ethernet ports on it one for power and calling the other for your computer.

I setup a router everything worked great I had wifi in my room no issues, a few hours later my router stopped working, my phone and laptop(macbook pro) could not connect to it wirelessly, but the wired connection did.

Bought a used router on kijiji had the same issue router works fine wired but wirelessly it just times out when you click to join it.

I have tried reseting it - nothing

I disabled the password - nothing

I reset and just plugged in the internet -nothing.

The only thing i can see that i messed up was , just for fun i plugged the router into the POE jack to see if i could get better speeds.

I woke up in the morning to everything working fine , the router would take the wired connection and make wifi for me, came back a few minutes latter and everything started timing out, rebooted my computer to find that i get the error message "the wifi network Room3118 could not be joined.

And just so you know my router is on my desk which is maybe a foot away from my pc.

So yes the router works fine as a switch giving me wired connection but i would like wireless for my phone and other wireless devices.

And yes i know with a mackbook pro you can share wifi over wifi but it is unencrypted and that worries me.

Thanks 

[capdauntless]

How many other wifi devices are on around you? It may simply be do to too much traffic on a certain wifi channel. You may be able to change the channel in your router settings. Other than that I personally would just buy a long ethernet cord and leave it at that. Less convenient but works. Dorm can't be that big can it?

[k1ng_alex]

there are about 6-7 other networks , I have tried different channels but still no luck. 

[k1ng_alex]

its the not the size of the dorm that matters its me wanting wifi on my phone and stuff

[capdauntless]

I understand that for sure. I would try configuring the router to be on another channel. Most are set to default of channel 6. Try something either like channel 1 or 2 or 10 or 11. See if that changes things. I see you tried different channels though. Hmmm. Have to think on this.

[k1ng_alex]

heres my last question. 

My macbook pro can share wifi over wifi but it is not secured. 

1. is there anyway to secure this with a password? bluetooth didnt work for me when i tried it out.

2. is there any harm to having my macbook share wifi to anybody that connects.

3 . (insert your suggestion here) 

 

To give you and idea i have , Macbook pro (runs fine on colleges wifi and wired) old laptop running freenas (needs wired) two android phones(wifi only) psvita (wifi only) amazon kindle (has free 3g so no internet needed)

Once again thanks for any help you can give

[k1ng_alex]

And also it should be stated i have no budget for this so free options would work fine.

needing more ethernet cables is also not a problem theres a kijiji ad for 1$ 5ft calbes