Only thing worse than no internet is slow internet
Hi i’m vamsi and lately, I’ve been getting poor WiFi reception after moving to a new
house.
Thankfully, I had this old WiFi router, which I was able to turn into WiFi repeater.
How did i do that?
Well, I’ll show you how
But, before we get into it, let’s see what others have done so far and why i didn’t
choose them.
1.
The first option that pops in my mind is to buy a WiFi repeater, it’s is a small wireless
device that receives the signal from your router and re-broadcasts it.
They’re dirt cheap and are genuinely a good option, but I decided to look other or even
better options.
2.
So i came across this thing called Powerline, unlike a WiFi repeater, which uses WiFi, powerline
adapters transmit data across the electrical cables in your home.
Powerline adapters are 10 fold better than Wi-Fi extenders because you don’t have to
worry about positioning them within range of your router.
Again, it’s a smart option, but they are pretty expensive, well what's a better alternative.
3.
Finally, you can install DD-WRT on your router and use transmit power option.
I already a DD-WRT on my main router, so I tried it and guess what ...it did work, but
it only increases the range of my Wi-Fi router by a few meters.
Which should suffice for most of you orcs.
After that odyessy , I decided to use my old router as a WiFi range extender.
The only downside is, I’ve to connect both routers with an ethernet cable.
But hey, it’s gets the job done.
Here’s my home setup looks like, the main router (connected to ISP internet line) is
placed in the ground floor.
While the second floor gets weak or no WiFi signals.
So we will connect our secondary router to the main router using an ethernet cable and
place it at the second floor of the house.
Now both routers will broadcast the same network, and we will have full WiFi coverage in the
entire house
So, before we begin do make sure you’ve got
Two WiFi routers.
Or Even a WiFi ADSL modem should work A long Ethernet cable (cat5 or 6) to connect
both routers.
Computer with Ethernet port to configure the routers.
This one was the toughest to find, since I only have Mac’s at home.
Anyhoo, once you have set up everything , here is how you Use a Second Router as an Access
Point
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That’s how you Use a Second Router as an Access Point.
Obviously, you would save a lot of time, by buying a WiFi repeater or a powerline, but
it’s a fun sunday project.
Now that you’ve got WiFi reception everywhere, If you’re ready to netflix and chill, check
out Smart DNS Proxy, i’ts let’s you unblock geo restriction and watch shows from overseas.
thanks for watching.
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Part 1 Check details of your main router
In this step, we will make a note of our main router’s SSID and password.
1.1 I am assuming that you are already connected to your main router with WiFi or ethernet
cable.
For this instance, my WiFi name is - Batcave.
So open your computer, launch your favorite browser and type in your router’s IP address.
If you don’t know your router’s IP address, open cmd and type in ipconfig /all for windows
or route -n get the default for Mac.
The IP address corresponding to the default gateway is your router’s login page.
Usually, it either 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1
1.2 Next it will ask for username and password.
Again if you don’t know your router’s login username and password, look at the back
of your router or google your router’s model number.
In most cases, it’s admin and admin or admin and password.
1.3 Once you are in the router’s setting page, look for Wireless option.
Depending on your router, you can either find this information in the front page, or you
might to look into LAN or Wireless settings.
There you will see your router’s SSID, mode, password and its encryption type.
For example, my SSID or WiFi name is Batcave, password is robin204, encrryption is wpa2,
and mode 11 b/g/n mix
Write down their values on a piece of paper or notepad.
We will need them later.
1.4 Close the browser and disconnect your computer from primary routers.
STEP 2: Configure secondary router Configure secondary router
In this step, we will configure our secondary router such that, it has same SSID/password
of our main router.
And also change few settings of the secondary router, so that both routers do not conflict
with each other.
2.1 Take your secondary router and power it ON.
At the back of the router, you will see a reset pinhole.
Take a tip of Pen and press the hole for 5-10 seconds, till you, all the lights on your
router blinking.
This will put your router back to factory setting.
2.2 Now keep the router powered ON and connect your secondary router to your computer using
an ethernet cable.
You can also connect via WiFi, if you don’t have a computer with RJ45 jack. for example
you’ll see SSID like TP-link followed by model number or Netgear etc.
But it’s better to do this on LAN cable, so I’ll turn off my wifi and connect my
old router to this computer via lan cable.
You can check from the network settings, that it’s connected to the ethernet and see the
router’s IP address there as well.
Now again open this router login page using the same method we follow in step 1, i.e.
type in the router’s IP address in your browser and then enter login credentials.
Once you are in the router setting page, go to wireless options.
And there enter the similar SSID, for this instance, I’ll name my old router as Batcave2,
so that you can see the difference.
But in general, it’s recommend, that you should keep same WiFi name.
The reason being, If two access point have same ssid and encryption settings, they are
saved as one wifi connection, and it’ll be easier for your smartphones to automatically
connect to stronger signal when you are moving around the house.
Next type in the same - mode, password and encryption that you have copied in step 1.
2.3 Next you need to make sure there is no conflict between our primary and secondary
router.
So, First turn off the DHCP in the secondary routers.
Our main router will do the work of assigning IP address to the device.
Second, change the IP address of your secondary routers.
For instance, if both routers have IP address there will be conflict.
In my case, both router have different IP address, so there will be no conflict, but
I’ll show you how to change that anyway.
So, to avoid conflict between two routers, we will assign secondary router an IP address
of 192.168.1.200
2.4 Finally now we have to make sure this secondary router work as a repeater.
So ensure that the operational mode is set to router only.
In some router, you won’t see operational mode option.
In that case, you have to look at NAT option and make sure it’s disabled.
So overall what we have done here is
Copy setting from primary routers like SSID and password
Make sure there is no conflict b/w these router by turning OFF DHCP and router’s IP address
We have to make sure that our secondary router only works in router mode and not gateway.
Save changes and disconnect your secondary router
STEP 3: Connect both routers Connect both routers
In this last step, we will connect both routers with an ethernet cable.
3.1 So take your ethernet cable and connect any one LAN port of the primary router to
the LAN port of the secondary router.
Make sure you are connecting it to the LAN port of secondary router and not WAN port
Part 4: Now, let’s test it.
And that’s it.
You can test your connection.
Fire up your terminal and ping Google.
Now, when I connect to batcave (or my primary router) you can see the internet is working,
now, let’s connect to second old router (i.e. batcave2) and voila, it’s working
as well.
You can also, download a free WiFi scanner app like WiFi Analyzer from PlayStore.
When I near batcave, the signal is best and when I move around the house and go to other
side, the signal of batcave drops but my phone automatically connects to batcave2, which
has better signal strength.
If your phone is not automatically switching to best WiFi singal, you can download apps
like auto switch, or make both wifi ssid in same name.