TR Forums

Hello all,
Our house is really long and has lots of rooms and brick and our wireless signal doesnt carry throughout. I want to add another wireless access point at another location in the house, can I simply connect another router to my existing one with cat5 from the LAN port on my existing one to the dsl port on the new one? I'm sure it's a little more complicated than that. What would be the best way to do it? I already have a cable running to where I want the access point to be. Thanks in advance for your help!

F

You need to clarify whether you are adding an access point or a router. If it is an access point then you can just plug it straight in to the LAN port on your existing router. If it is a router then you need to dumb it down to act purely as an access point:
1) Attach a PC to it directly with nothing else plugged in and bring up the managment screen.
2) Disable the DHCP server on the router.
3) Enable wireless with the same credentials as your current router - this makes it easier for clients to roam from one access point to the other.
4) Assign it an address that is in the subnet controlled by your current router but outside of its DHCP range. Here's an example:
Current router controls 192.168.1.0/24 and hands out DHCP addresses in the range 192.168.1.10 - 192.168.1.100, make your new router 192.168.1.200.
5) Shut down the PC and the new router.
6) Connect the new router to the old router using the LAN ports on both, do not connect anything to the WAN/DSL port on the new router.

Yeah, Sorry for the discrepancy. I don't actually have anything yet, a router or access point. I wanted to ask here to see what is best for what I want to do. I don't want to add a wireless repeater since I already have a cable leading to where I want to put it, I just want to add something else to broadcast a wireless signal further from that point.

So, should I get a wireless router or what do you think would be best?

Notfred hit the nail dead on. A wireless router will be cheaper generally and can be repurposed to be an access point. At my workplace I've been using Engenius products for the access points we've needed. (upgrading signal / speed from older Linksys routers running DD-WRT)