Networking Question...

[RedWings]

My current network setup is as follows.

There is network cable that runs from my FIOS box outside, into my basement closet, and up to my living room (2nd floor). I have a wireless router plugged in there. In the basement closet (which is now where all my A/V equipment is for my man cave) I currently have a wireless bridge for my 722 and hopefully a slingbox in the near future.

Instead of having the 722/slingbox hooked up via wireless, i'd like them to be hardwired. Yet I still want a wireless router on the 2nd floor because I also have a 3rd floor where I'd like to still get a good signal.

So what kind of setup would you suggest?

 

[ericha]

My current network setup is as follows.

There is network cable that runs from my FIOS box outside, into my basement closet, and up to my living room (2nd floor). I have a wireless router plugged in there. In the basement closet (which is now where all my A/V equipment is for my man cave) I currently have a wireless bridge for my 722 and hopefully a slingbox in the near future.

Instead of having the 722/slingbox hooked up via wireless, i'd like them to be hardwired. Yet I still want a wireless router on the 2nd floor because I also have a 3rd floor where I'd like to still get a good signal.

So what kind of setup would you suggest?

How about a router in the closet, that connects to the 722 & future slingbox, and also connects to the wireless router upstairs? You can cascade routers pretty much forever.

 

[RedWings]

How about a router in the closet, that connects to the 722 & future slingbox, and also connects to the wireless router upstairs? You can cascade routers pretty much forever.

Thats what I was thinking but didn' t know if there was a better alternative.

In that case I could just get a wired router setup in the basement closet, then connect the line to the living room with the WRT54G to the new router.

 

[cummingsje]

I would have to agree with ericha. If you already have the line going through your basement closet you should be able to add a wireless router at the point (unless I am missing something). Then cascade another router on the 2nd floor as ericha suggested.

 

[cummingsje]

Thats what I was thinking but didn' t know if there was a better alternative.

In that case I could just get a wired router setup in the basement closet, then connect the line to the living room with the WRT54G to the new router.

Yep! That should do it. Not sure if you need to disable DHCP on one of the routers or not. I'm sure a networking expert will be on soon to correct me!

 

[RedWings]

Yep! That should do it. Not sure if you need to disable DHCP on one of the routers or not. I'm sure a networking expert will be on soon to correct me!

I think i'd need to make sure the IP address on the WRT54G is not the same as the new router. Also disable DHCP on the WRT54G.

 

[cummingsje]

I think i'd need to make sure the IP address on the WRT54G is not the same as the new router. Also disable DHCP on the WRT54G.

Exactly! Just to make sure there are no ip conflicts.

 

[RedWings]

I'll need to extend the cable a little bit so i'm thinking a few couplers and some patch cables.

 

[navychop]

Might get a more reliable signal by running one longer cable and avoiding the extra connections. Of course, that is theory. Might not make any difference in reality.

 

[daveray]

I think i'd need to make sure the IP address on the WRT54G is not the same as the new router. Also disable DHCP on the WRT54G.

You would need to go from the LAN port on the first router to a Lan port on the second router.

 

[RedWings]

Might get a more reliable signal by running one longer cable and avoiding the extra connections. Of course, that is theory. Might not make any difference in reality.

The problem is the wire run to the living room WRT54G is through finished walls, so I can't run that cable again w/o making holes in the walls. So i'll need to extend that one for sure.

 

[RedWings]

You would need to go from the LAN port on the first router to a Lan port on the second router.

I was under the impression that you would go from the WAN port of the wireless router to a LAN port of the hard wired router.

FIOS -> New Hardwired Router -(Cat 5 from LAN port)->WAN Port of WRT54G

 

[diu.steve]

A router in the basement is not needed. A 10/100 or 10/100/1000 ethernet switch will also do the job and likely save you money. 10/100 ethernet switches run about $25 in my neck of the woods.

A router in the basement would require a little more setup. You would not need to disable the DHCP server, just setup a new subnet. Lets say your upstairs network is 192.168.1.xxx. Make the downstairs router subnet 192.168.2.xxx. But, again, without going into the exact instructions, a switch is easier to setup, will serve your needs fine, and cost you less.

 

[RedWings]

A router in the basement is not needed. A 10/100 or 10/100/1000 ethernet switch will also do the job and likely save you money. 10/100 ethernet switches run about $25 in my neck of the woods.

A router in the basement would require a little more setup. You would not need to disable the DHCP server, just setup a new subnet. Lets say your upstairs network is 192.168.1.xxx. Make the downstairs router subnet 192.168.2.xxx. But, again, without going into the exact instructions, a switch is easier to setup, will serve your needs fine, and cost you less.

So the upstairs wireless router would just plug into the switch correct?

 

[RedWings]

I thought the cable coming from the FIOS box (modem) needed to be connected to a router?

If I got a switch, this would have to be the setup since I only have one line run between the wireless router and basement closet where the switch would be located.

 

[daveray]

I was under the impression that you would go from the WAN port of the wireless router to a LAN port of the hard wired router.

FIOS -> New Hardwired Router -(Cat 5 from LAN port)->WAN Port of WRT54G

I am using a 2 router set up at work and home different routers at both sites they work well 1st router LAN to LAN on the second router. I had no luck LAN to WAN on the second router.
This makes the second router a switch in effect with wireless capability if you use a wireless router

 

[hendrix04]

you guys make me want to cry... What you want is a router down stairs between your modem and everything else. Like daveray said, you want to go from a LAN port on one router, to a LAN port on the other. The reason for doing this is that you are putting router #2 (upstairs) into switch mode. This way you are not NATing twice and everything in your house is on the same physical network. If you go from LAN port on router 1 to WAN on router 2 you are actually creating 2 different networks and this is going to cause you to have all kinds of trouble if you are trying to share files between computers or what not.

Something else that you DO NOT want to do is put a switch downstairs and a router upstairs. What this is going to do is give a couple of devices direct access to your modem. They are either not going to work, or try and pull an external IP address. If they do indeed pull an external IP address then they are going to be directly on the internet not part of your internal network. They will not be protected by any type of firewall and will be open to all types of malicious attacks. This will be bad for you and everyone involved.

Now, to get into more specifics, this is how my home network is running...
A) I have router #1 hooked up to my modem. It has its built in firewall and is my DHCP server.
B) I have a long network cable ran from my house to my garage with a 2nd router hooked up. (I am going from LAN port on router 1 to LAN port on router 2).
C) On router 2 I have turned off DHCP and assigned one of its LAN ports to a static IP address that is out of the range of my router 1 DHCP server. (this keeps me from possibly having conflicting IP addresses on my network)

To sum it up, I now have 2 different SSIDs that I can connect wirelessly to my network (with higher end equipment i could only have 1 SSID with multiple access points). This allows me to connect to my home network wirelessly easily while either in my house or in my garage.

I hope this post has helped you out. If you have any questions you can PM me because I hardly ever come into this forum to checkup on posts i may have made.

 

[RedWings]

Great write-up hendrix04...>Thanks.

I think another route I could go is to put my current WRT54G router downstairs with the A/V equipment. Run the line from the modem to the WRT54G. Then plug in my VIP 722, PS3, Slingbox, etc..

Then I could take my current wireless bridge/repeater and move it upstairs to the next level and put it right next to my VIP 622. See where i'm going? Yea thats right. Now the VIP 622 will be hooked to the network and the repeater will help getting the signal to the deck/3rd floor. As long as the signal between the two routers is strong, then everything should be kosher.

 

[hendrix04]

sounds right to me as long as you hook them together correctly