Wifi extending

[Harry Bloomfield]

Local to me AP's have become so many, that I have begun experimenting with adding a second AP.

AP 1 is on the top floor, is the one plugged into the broadband.

AP 2 is on the ground floor, a Netgear ADSL2 modem router, connected to AP 1 via a wired LAN cable and is the one I am experimenting to add.

Both are on fixed IP's in a similar range of numbers.

Switch AP 2 on, I have no problems connecting to AP 2 via WiFi and accessing AP1's settings pages. For a while I can browse/ download email and etc. then it looses access to the WAN via AP 2, but not items on the LAN. Reboot AP 2 and access to the WAN returns for a while.

Swap back to connecting directly to AP 1 and I have normal access to the WAN, but sometime slow/ wiped out by other local to me AP's.

[Andy Burns]

A good answer is to use 5GHz instead of 2.4GHz, you'll probably find fewer of your neighbours are using it, and even if they are, it doesn't pass through walls as well, so each house tends to keep themselves to themselves ...

[TimW]

Isn't this normally done with those things you plug into the mains, that send the data through the ring main in some mysterious and incomprehensible way?

Tim W

[Martin Brown]

Have you got them set up so that only one is issuing IP addresses? One should be slaved to the other as a range extender.

There are usually menus hidden in the "here be dragons" part.

You might benefit by surveying the local AP's and/or moving your network onto the cleanest channel or 5GHz if the routers support it.

[Chris Bartram]

Do you have the two APs on non-overlapping channels?

[Harry Bloomfield]

Martin Brown wrote on 04/11/2016 :

No, I have set both able to dish out IP's and I cannot see a setting to use AP 2 as an extender.

AP 1 is on channel 4, AP 2 is on channel 13 (yes, I know).

I don't want to have to swap to 5Ghz that would involve some major expense. Even on the ground floor, my laptop is logging around 20 AP's, with 3 or 4 stronger than my AP 1.

[Tim Watts]

You have to make a decision, based on hardware capabilities:

1a) Does the AP's DHCP server only issue IPs on the WIFI network, 1b) or can it / does it issue IPs on the wired network too? 2) Does the AP act as a network bridge (same IP blocks on boths sides of the wired/wifi domains)?

If (2) AND (1b) then you'd want to turn one DHCP server off or both will be trying to issue IPs, possibly the same one as one already in use.

In the case of (2) you also have the choice to use a 3rd DHCP server (eg the one in your DSL/Cable router. This might be neater as you have all of that in one place then.

[Harry Bloomfield]

On AP 2 I have set >LAN IP Setup > 'Use Router as DHP Server' to unticked. So far it seems to be working fine, but it worked fine with it ticked for several hours yesterday evening.

Thanks!

[Harry Bloomfield]

.and thanks again, it is still working - so all down to un-ticking that one box.

[Michael Chare]

Have you followed these instructions: