Cisco networking help

[mpsparrow]

So, my Dad has a really nice friend that keeps sending me his old computer hardware when he upgrades. In the past he has sent me some ethernet switches, graphics cards, and many many Cisco routers and access points. I have used most of the graphics cards and switches for just general stuff around the house, but have sort of just left the routers and access points sitting under my bed collecting dust. Now is the time that I pull them out and finally do something with them. He just sent me another one so I am up to 4 Cisco products (2 routers, 2 access points).

 

I need help figuring out the best way to use these things. I don't know if the routers will be of any help as we already have an Asus RT-AC68U router that is still doing very well, but the access points could be a huge help. Our house is quite big and therefore some spots of the house don't get the best Wi-Fi.

 

Here is a list of all the Cisco routers and access points he has given me thus far.

• Cisco air-ap1142n-a-k9
• Cisco air-lap1131ag-a-k9
• Cisco SOHO 97
• Cisco 870

So, what is the best way to use all of this plus my Asus RT-AC68U router to get good internet throughout the house? Do the access points work with the Asus RT-AC68U? Are one of the two Cisco routers better then the Asus RT-AC68U? We already have good Wi-Fi throughout the house, although if these will make it better then I want to use them.

 

Any help and guidance would be extremely appreciated.

 

P.S. He also sent them too me as I am into tech and whatnot and these could help me learn new things. So if they are useless for our houses networking, is there a way that I could hook it up beside our current system so that I can play around with them and learn?

[brwainer]

You can use one or both routers to make a segregated Lab network, where you can mess around and not cause issues for the other people in the house. It's never a good idea to make anything you are playing with or learning as a central piece of the houses internet.

 

Your 1131 AP is a/g only, while the 1142 is a/g/n dual band (2.4 and 5GHz). Therefore the 1131 may not be useful unless you have an area of the house, or maybe outside, where any coverage is better than no coverage. The 1142 should be a fairly good AP to stick anywhere, unless you already have good N or AC coverage. Both APs are standalone, meaning they don't support being centrally managed by a controller - this is a good thing since you don't have a controller.

 

You can certainly use these devices just for learning, if you wanted to do that I'd recommend looking up the Cisco certifications: With the routers you would be looking to study VLANs, routing protocols, and general IOS setup. With the APs you would be just trying to learn how to set them up - APs are pretty simple in what they do really.

[legopc]

Use the 1142n as and ap for your house, its an enterprise ap and will most likely shrek whatever your asus thing can do. It does require a little bit of knowledge about cisco and networking though. 

The rest of the stuff you can use to start a homelab and or practice for a cisco cert like ccent or ccna. 

[Lurick]

The throughput on the routers is pretty low, they are generally rated for around 50Mbps or less. As for the APs you can use them to replace the wireless on the Asus router if you want but you'll need the image to put them into standalone mode. The other option is to set them up in a mini lab environment at home and play around and learn until you get comfortable with them.

[Unhelpful]

4 hours ago, legopc said:

Use the 1142n as and ap for your house, its an enterprise ap and will most likely shrek whatever your asus thing can do. It does require a little bit of knowledge about cisco and networking though. 

The rest of the stuff you can use to start a homelab and or practice for a cisco cert like ccent or ccna. 

Ehhh... I wouldn't say that. The 1142n is about $15 used. It's a pretty damn old enterprise ap. It'll still probably be better than the N66U though.

[mpsparrow]

Okay, thanks for all your replies!

 

2 hours ago, JoeyDM said:

Ehhh... I wouldn't say that. The 1142n is about $15 used. It's a pretty damn old enterprise ap. It'll still probably be better than the N66U though.

 

7 hours ago, legopc said:

Use the 1142n as and ap for your house, its an enterprise ap and will most likely shrek whatever your asus thing can do. It does require a little bit of knowledge about cisco and networking though. 

The rest of the stuff you can use to start a homelab and or practice for a cisco cert like ccent or ccna. 

 

10 hours ago, brwainer said:

You can use one or both routers to make a segregated Lab network, where you can mess around and not cause issues for the other people in the house. It's never a good idea to make anything you are playing with or learning as a central piece of the houses internet.

 

Your 1131 AP is a/g only, while the 1142 is a/g/n dual band (2.4 and 5GHz). Therefore the 1131 may not be useful unless you have an area of the house, or maybe outside, where any coverage is better than no coverage. The 1142 should be a fairly good AP to stick anywhere, unless you already have good N or AC coverage. Both APs are standalone, meaning they don't support being centrally managed by a controller - this is a good thing since you don't have a controller.

 

You can certainly use these devices just for learning, if you wanted to do that I'd recommend looking up the Cisco certifications: With the routers you would be looking to study VLANs, routing protocols, and general IOS setup. With the APs you would be just trying to learn how to set them up - APs are pretty simple in what they do really.

Sounds like you are all saying that I should use the 1142 as an ap for my Asus router and just use the rest for a network lab. I don't want to really replace the Asus router. The router is plenty powerful for our house. It is a better router then some of you are making it sound. So I am probably going to keep the Asus router setup and then use the 1142 in a corner of my house to help get wireless over there.

 

So, since I am a little noob when it comes to this, I have three questions.

• How do I go about hooking up the 1142 as an ap? Do I need to do it in my Asus router or is it independent? Also do I need to run an ethernet cable to it? Perhaps if you guys could link a tutorial or explain it to me that would be appreciated.
• How do I setup a "network lab" where I can play around with these things without interfering with my current setup? I really want to start learning all this stuff as it is something that peaks my interest.
• Is it worth selling some of these that I don't end up using? Could I make a few bucks off of selling them on eBay/Kijiji or is it not worth it?

[Unhelpful]

13 minutes ago, mpsparrow said:

 

Actually the Asus is a better AP. It's a bit worse for range in my experience, but it's almost as stable and 802.11ac. Sorry about that, I thought you had an N66U. My bad! I recommend making this all lab equipment.