Home Networking Assistance

[Chaos Network]

I have a pretty good router at my house, but it has very poor signal strength in my basement. Would I be able to use my old router as like a network extender of some sort? How would I go about setting this up?

[The_Denks]

2 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

I have a pretty good router at my house, but it has very poor signal strength in my basement. Would I be able to use my old router as like a network extender of some sort? How would I go about setting this up?

You could buy a second access point, and run an ethernet cable down to that.

Also, you could find an access point that supports bridging, and use that like a router in reverse, wifi to ethernet, and conenct that to whatever device

[potatoproduction]

2 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

I have a pretty good router at my house, but it has very poor signal strength in my basement. Would I be able to use my old router as like a network extender of some sort? How would I go about setting this up?

I have tried this idea and it is simply very hard and impracticle to do. only specific routers can do it and it requires installing new firmware on the routerand it  adds a ton of latency and slows down the speed considerably. you would be better off running a ethernet cableor power over ethernet to your basement then to another a router

[Oshino Shinobu]

It's best to check if your old router has an access point mode. Enabling that will allow it to act as a simple wireless access point (and switch if it has multiple ports)

 

EDIT: This requires a cable to be run to the router. If you're wanting to "boost" the wireless signal, you're looking for a wireless repeater, which are generally not great as they significantly decrease bandwidth. 

[Chaos Network]

So I would just be able to run an Ethernet cord from my good new router upstairs to my good old router downstairs and it will work?

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, Chaos Network said:

So I would just be able to run an Ethernet cord from my good new router upstairs to my good old router downstairs and it will work?

Technically, yes. If you old router has an access point mode, enable it. If not, disable DHCP and NAT functions. Plug the old router in via one of the LAN ports (not the WAN/internet port) and it should work. You can set the SSID and password the same as the current router if you want your devices to switch automatically between the two routers. 

[Chaos Network]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

Technically, yes. If you old router has an access point mode, enable it. If not, disable DHCP and NAT functions. Plug the old router in via one of the LAN ports (not the WAN/internet port) and it should work. You can set the SSID and password the same as the current router if you want your devices to switch automatically between the two routers. 

Ok, thanks!

[Oshino Shinobu]

7 minutes ago, potatoproduction said:

I have tried this idea and it is simply very hard and impracticle to do. only specific routers can do it and it requires installing new firmware on the routerand it  adds a ton of latency and slows down the speed considerably. you would be better off running a ethernet cableor power over ethernet to your basement then to another a router

I assume you're talking about wireless repeater modes. That depends on the router. Some that don't support it using their native firmware can have DD-WRT installed to allow it, but many higher end routers will have the option in their stock firmware and it just needs to be enabled (and a little setup). I'd agree that wireless repeaters aren't good, though. 

 

An ethernet and PoE cable (both are just an ethernet cable) are really the same thing. It just depends whether you have a PoE switch or an adaptor. 

[WkdPaul]

moved to Networking