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Hi Gerbils. A friend is asking me to help her resolve a network problem. She has two wireless routers, one is a Linksys (Router 1) and the other is a Cisco (Router 2). Router 1 is connected to the Internet, and is the 'main' router, while Router 2 is connected (daisy chained, I believe it's called) to Router 1 via a LAN cable. I believe this setup should allow all PCs connected to Router 2 access to the PCs connected to Router 1, but the problem is, her PC (connected to Router 2) cannot view the PCs connected to Router 1 although she told me she can ping those PCs connected to Router 1 just fine. Any thoughts? I'm admittedly not very good with networking stuff, so go a little easy on me.

Many thanks in advance.

For this to work:

- change router 2's IP to be on the same subnet as router 1 (ie if router 1 is 192.168.1.1 then change router 2 to 192.168.1.2)

- make sure the dhcp server on router 1 isn't going to issue the address that router 2 is using (ie make sure it's range is something like 192.168.1.10 - 192.168.1.254)

- disable the dhcp server on router 2

- make sure the two routers are connect by their lan ports with the wan port on router 2 being empty.

- if they're wifi then make sure they are both setup with the same ssid, passphrase and security settings (eg both wpa2)

That's about it

Of course you could just buy a switch to replace router 2 and save yourself all that trouble

Cheesyking has some very good suggestions, but you make a statement that make me think routing is not the problem: she can ping the PCs just fine, just can't "view" them.

I'm not exactly sure what "view" means, but I am taking it to mean she can't browse to them. Correct me if I am wrong.

If she can indeed ping them, then there should be a route and the problem is most likely in share/workgroup settings.
1. Make sure the workgroup name for all PCs are the same
2. Make sure the same usernames and passwords exist on each computer
3. Make sure resources being accessed are shared through Windows
4. Try IPs instead of names (for example \\<IP.IP.IP.IP>\c$)

I suspect that whilst she is using a "LAN cable" it is not connected to the LAN port as per cheesyking's post. Ping will get NAT'd through router 2 whilst for Windows Networking to browse and share it needs to be on the same LAN and not hidden behind a NAT.

I think cheesyking and notfred nailed it.

If you are going to double up routers like this, you need to connect them together via their LAN ports; the WAN (Internet) port on the router that isn't connected to the Internet should be left unconnected.

And just to clarify chessyking's first step: He's talking about the LAN side IP of router #2 (since the WAN side isn't even being used).

I wanna thank everyone who has replied and continue to reply to this thread. Since I don't have firsthand access to her setup, I gave her the link to this thread so she can view it directly instead. I'll keep an eye on this thread as well. I'll let everyone know when she has resolved it already using your suggestions. Again, many thanks and advanced Happy Holidays!