8 replies to this topic

[roadrunerboi]

Hi all,

Need help after 3 exhausting days of trying to get this to work.

My OEM True ZyXEL does not have enough juice to pipe wifi into the rooms so I would like to use the WRT54GL as an access point for the other rooms.
How do I go around doing this?

Thanks in advanced.

[Pib]

You can set the WRT54 up in repeater mode but please note that will reduce your speed/bandwidth by half....this is the downside to repeaters in Wifi mode since they must spend half their time communicating with the main Wifi router (i.e., you ZyXel) and the other half with the client devices (i.e, your computer, smartphone, etc). That is, if you have a 10Mb internet plan feeding your ZyXel then the WRT54 will broadcast/repeat its Wifi signal with a max speed/bandwidth of 5Mb. Now if you can run an ethernet cable from your ZyXEL Wifi router to the WRT54 then you shouldn't have this 50% reduction in bandwidth that you will have with a Wifi link between the ZyXEL and WRT54.

I've set my WRT54 up like this before when just playing around...that is via Wifi link. I live in a 2 story concrete home with my True DOCSIS Wifi modem/router upstairs in the master bedroom....I'm on a 20Mb/2Mb internet plan. I placed my WRT54G downstairs and set it up to repeater mode. Quite a few links on the internet that walk a person through setting up the WRT54 for repeater mode...here's one Link.

Using the WRT54 downstairs definitely increased signal strength downstairs but decreased the bandwidth/speed to 10Mb/1Mb due to the reason I mentioned above. After playing with it for a few days I disconnect the setup. Why? Because I was still getting more than enough signal strength throughout the house using the True-provided Wifi router (I've had two...a Cisco model and my current Thomson model) and also getting the full 20Mb/2Mb bandwidth.

To increase the signal strenght in the other rooms you might want to first try repositioning your ZyXEL, maybe trying an external/relocatable antenna if possible, or if the ZxXEL has a standard dipole antenna just put a home-made tinfoil reflector on it which should give you a nice little signal strength gain and also allow you to adjust the direction of the signal...that's what I did and it definitely helps. You can search on ThaVisa and find several threads on how to boost signal strengh with homemade devices....there is one such thread out there that is only a few weeks old. Edit: here's that Thread.

And unless the low signal strength is causing disconnect problems or reduced speed problems, don't worry about it....but I guess in your case you are having such problems. Good luck.

Edited by Pib, 2012-09-23 10:17:21.

[roadrunerboi]

Hi Pib,

Thanks for the reply.
I will not be "repeating" the wifi signal... my new place has internet jacks in every room and the modem sits in the utility cabinet that pipes wired internet to every room.
Therefore the WRT54GL will be connected to modem via ethernet cable.
Thanks again and I will look into the url you provided.

[roadrunerboi]

OK... DONE!

Connected modem cable to WRT54GL WAN.
Changed IP (so that it is outside range of modem IP which is default IP)
Setup wireless WPA2.

Notebook at the desk is wired to the WRT54GL and there is a separate wireless zone for the bedrooms now. Check that there is no clash with the living room wireless and all is well.

AWESOME!

[monty]

You can set the WRT54 up in repeater mode but please note that will reduce your speed/bandwidth by half....this is the downside to repeaters in Wifi mode since they must spend half their time communicating with the main Wifi router (i.e., you ZyXel) and the other half with the client devices (i.e, your computer, smartphone, etc). That is, if you have a 10Mb internet plan feeding your ZyXel then the WRT54 will broadcast/repeat its Wifi signal with a max speed/bandwidth of 5Mb. Now if you can run an ethernet cable from your ZyXEL Wifi router to the WRT54 then you shouldn't have this 50% reduction in bandwidth that you will have with a Wifi link between the ZyXEL and WRT54.

I've set my WRT54 up like this before when just playing around...that is via Wifi link. I live in a 2 story concrete home with my True DOCSIS Wifi modem/router upstairs in the master bedroom....I'm on a 20Mb/2Mb internet plan. I placed my WRT54G downstairs and set it up to repeater mode. Quite a few links on the internet that walk a person through setting up the WRT54 for repeater mode...here's one Link.

Using the WRT54 downstairs definitely increased signal strength downstairs but decreased the bandwidth/speed to 10Mb/1Mb due to the reason I mentioned above. After playing with it for a few days I disconnect the setup. Why? Because I was still getting more than enough signal strength throughout the house using the True-provided Wifi router (I've had two...a Cisco model and my current Thomson model) and also getting the full 20Mb/2Mb bandwidth.

To increase the signal strenght in the other rooms you might want to first try repositioning your ZyXEL, maybe trying an external/relocatable antenna if possible, or if the ZxXEL has a standard dipole antenna just put a home-made tinfoil reflector on it which should give you a nice little signal strength gain and also allow you to adjust the direction of the signal...that's what I did and it definitely helps. You can search on ThaVisa and find several threads on how to boost signal strengh with homemade devices....there is one such thread out there that is only a few weeks old. Edit: here's that Thread.

And unless the low signal strength is causing disconnect problems or reduced speed problems, don't worry about it....but I guess in your case you are having such problems. Good luck.

Correct and not correct
Using a wifi repeater halves the maximum wifi speed, not your ISP's internet speed.
Most 802.11G routers (like the wrt54) have a real life transfer speed of around 20-25Mbps. They never reach their theoretical maximum (54Mbps).
Using one as a repeater will bring this down to 50% of that, around 10Mbps...
So in Pib's case, he was getting slower then what his internet package was capable of!
However, if you have a 10Mbps internet package, you would't notice any difference as your repeater can handle roughly that speed...


Sent from my GT-I9001 using Thaivisa Connect App

[Pib]

You can set the WRT54 up in repeater mode but please note that will reduce your speed/bandwidth by half....this is the downside to repeaters in Wifi mode since they must spend half their time communicating with the main Wifi router (i.e., you ZyXel) and the other half with the client devices (i.e, your computer, smartphone, etc). That is, if you have a 10Mb internet plan feeding your ZyXel then the WRT54 will broadcast/repeat its Wifi signal with a max speed/bandwidth of 5Mb. Now if you can run an ethernet cable from your ZyXEL Wifi router to the WRT54 then you shouldn't have this 50% reduction in bandwidth that you will have with a Wifi link between the ZyXEL and WRT54.

I've set my WRT54 up like this before when just playing around...that is via Wifi link. I live in a 2 story concrete home with my True DOCSIS Wifi modem/router upstairs in the master bedroom....I'm on a 20Mb/2Mb internet plan. I placed my WRT54G downstairs and set it up to repeater mode. Quite a few links on the internet that walk a person through setting up the WRT54 for repeater mode...here's one Link.

Using the WRT54 downstairs definitely increased signal strength downstairs but decreased the bandwidth/speed to 10Mb/1Mb due to the reason I mentioned above. After playing with it for a few days I disconnect the setup. Why? Because I was still getting more than enough signal strength throughout the house using the True-provided Wifi router (I've had two...a Cisco model and my current Thomson model) and also getting the full 20Mb/2Mb bandwidth.

To increase the signal strenght in the other rooms you might want to first try repositioning your ZyXEL, maybe trying an external/relocatable antenna if possible, or if the ZxXEL has a standard dipole antenna just put a home-made tinfoil reflector on it which should give you a nice little signal strength gain and also allow you to adjust the direction of the signal...that's what I did and it definitely helps. You can search on ThaVisa and find several threads on how to boost signal strengh with homemade devices....there is one such thread out there that is only a few weeks old. Edit: here's that Thread.

And unless the low signal strength is causing disconnect problems or reduced speed problems, don't worry about it....but I guess in your case you are having such problems. Good luck.

Correct and not correct
Using a wifi repeater halves the maximum wifi speed, not your ISP's internet speed.
Most 802.11G routers (like the wrt54) have a real life transfer speed of around 20-25Mbps. They never reach their theoretical maximum (54Mbps).
Using one as a repeater will bring this down to 50% of that, around 10Mbps...
So in Pib's case, he was getting slower then what his internet package was capable of!
However, if you have a 10Mbps internet package, you would't notice any difference as your repeater can handle roughly that speed...


Sent from my GT-I9001 using Thaivisa Connect App

I don't know....I think it halves you data speed also because although I didn't mention it I had also tried my WRT54 in repeater mode when I had a TOT ADSL modem feeding my primary U.S. Robotics 54G Wifi router (when I was on a TOT 6Mb/512Kb internet plan). The speed my WRT54 repeated was 3Mb/256Kb even through it would show a 54Mb basic sync connection. Just my results.

[Pib]

OK... DONE!

Connected modem cable to WRT54GL WAN.
Changed IP (so that it is outside range of modem IP which is default IP)
Setup wireless WPA2.

Notebook at the desk is wired to the WRT54GL and there is a separate wireless zone for the bedrooms now. Check that there is no clash with the living room wireless and all is well.

AWESOME!

Cool....fixed that IP conflict and got it working. One time about 6 months ago while playing with my accumlated routers on a boring day, I hooked my U.S. Robotics 54G and Linksys WRT54 Wifi routers via ethernet cables to my True-provider Thomson Wifi 54G modem/router which was the front end connection to my True DOCSIS 20Mb/2Mb internet connection, changed the IP starting addresses on the USR and Linksys routers to prevent conflicts and also set all three routers to different RF broadcast frequencies (Channels 1, 6, & 11) and had three Wifi routers blasting out my connection under WPA2 encryption. My laptops could connect to each of the Wifi routers no problem. OK, after about a day of that, I unhooked the USR and Linksys routers and packed them away...decided just to drink Chang beer for my kicks.

And if you ever zap the WAN port on your Linksys WRT54 (like mine got zapped during a lightning storm and stopped working) you can reassign your WAN input port to one of the LAN ports....it's what I had to do to get my WRT54G working again. See below on how to do it...really fast and simple . Don't waste you time opening up the WRT54 to see if there is some WAN port fuse that can be changed; there ain't...I looked....just reassign the WAN port to a LAN port...through the magic of hardware/firmware that LAN port is now your WAN port. Of course a small downside is you now only have 3 LAN ports versus 4 LAN ports, but I usually never had more than 2 LAN connections in use...usually just 1 for a VOIP device...and every other connection was via Wifi.

Attached Files

•  WRT54G-How to Reassign WAN Port.JPG   57.34K   3 downloads

[roadrunerboi]

OK... I made a mistake with the configuration the last time so I actually had 2 SSIDs running which was OK... but not perfect.
I fixed it over the weekend and now its seamless...

Took everything down and started again.

• Reset Linksys WTR54GL (LS)
• Connect LS to computer LAN node to LAN node (NO internet connection at this point)
• Change LS router IP to 192.168.1.2 (because primary True OEM router is IP 192.168.1.1
• SAVE settings, remove all LAN connections
• Reboot LS
• Reconnect PC to LS LAN node 1
• Disable DHCP server (all other settings remain the same)
• Connected internet cable to LS LAN node 1
• Connected PC to LS LAN node 4 (this is consistent to the above posts saying to IGNORE WAN)
• Check that the PC can log into both routers, the primary (192.168.1.1) and the secondary (192.168.1.1)
• Assuming you are good to go, log into secondary router (LS)
• Change SSID to exactly the same as primary
• Change WEP to exactly the same as primary
• SAVE SETTINGS

When you walk from one zone to another, there is split second drop in signal as the device moves from one router to another (vice versa)...

Thanks for all the advice. Also... no drop in signal strength so far but I suspect it is due to my secondary router being a wired connection to the primary and therefore it is not technically acting as a "repeater".

[Dhanvan]

Hi All,

Thank god there's a topic similar to one problem I'm having.

Here's what I'm trying to do, extend our wifi range in our compound. I live in a 1/2-hectare compound and I need to extend our wifi connection. Not sure the exact term to use, but I need to be able to access the wifi all throughout the compound.

I have a ZyXEL P-660HN-T1A provided by my ISP. It acts as both a modem and a router so I don't have a separate router that connects to the modem first. I just have that main one.

I also have a linksys-WRT54GH. This is the router I'm trying to use to extend the wifi. But for the life of me nothing worked given I followed all steps from different forums already.

I already did the following:

My IP address is 192.168.1.1 for zyxel (main router)
I disabled DHCP for linksys (2nd router)
I changed linksys' IP to 192.168.1.2

Some forum says I need to disable NAT for the 2nd router, but I don't see that option for the linksys model I have and I searched online how to disable it and found no luck.

What exact settings do I need to do to set it up correctly?

Appreciate the help.

Further notes:
Our internet runs on a static IP address, not sure if that has implications.

Cheers,