Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Extending a wireless network

  • 28-10-2004 11:40pm
    #1
    -Toppy-
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 557 ✭✭✭


    Right, I am a bit perplexed how to do this,
    I am using SMC gear which supports WDS

    I have to cover 4 floors of a fairly old building with pretty thick concrete floors

    Top floor has a few offices currently is running a 11mbps ap connected to dsl this AP does not support WDS.
    Machines are a combination of XP/win98 server is win2k3

    So at first I removed this access point and put in a SMC2870W 54mbps and set it up with wds, now suddenly network traffic is dying slow and dsl access has gone atrocious, so I plugged back in the 11mbps and moved the 54 to a different network with wds enabled and changed the channel so it would clash, (11 is on channel 8, 54 is on channel 3)
    I installed the other 54 mbps access points and they seemed aok,
    pinging each other hunky dory

    next i tried to access the server still not great, so out of mad curiousity i did a tracert on it and basically it came back some thing like this
    1 10 10 10 192.168.1.1
    2 * * * timed out
    3 10 10 10 192.168.1.1

    (speeds are fictional)
    But its looping!!! wtf???

    Am I going about this all wrong. Should I get rid of WDS and change the 54mbps access points to bridges?

    Any advice is helpful
    Cheers
    Toppy


Comments

  • #2
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,615 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    First Step.
    If you think the 54g unit will not give reliable connections above 11Mb then set it to run in b mode only. This will stop it handshaking and should give more stable connections. 54g will only give faster throughput if the signal quality is very good.

    Are both AP's cabled to the LAN or are you trying to repeat wirelessly ?

    You should have only one DHCP server setup otherwise you may get duplicate addresses or other funny stuff. (eg: if the AP's are routing to each other !!)
    When everything is working you could then setup a second DHCP server with the same settings for gateway etc. but handing out a different set of IP addresses for reduncancy. Most routers seem to be able to be able to renew DHCP addresses faster than a Windows server on the same LAN - but I not used 2003 as a DHCP server so can't be certain that would happen there.

    Channels seperations seem ok
    - non intefering groups are supposed to be
    (1,5,9,13)
    (2,6,10)
    (3,7,11)
    (4,8,12)

    run netstumbler in case someone else is using an AP nearby - depending on your card it should also give an indication of noise levels - eg: video senders

    Also the radiation pattern is a doughnut so if you want to get the signal to different floors turn the ap on it's side.


  • #3
    -Toppy-
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 557 ✭✭✭-Toppy-


    Capt'n Midnight wrote:
    First Step.
    If you think the 54g unit will not give reliable connections above 11Mb then set it to run in b mode only. This will stop it handshaking and should give more stable connections. 54g will only give faster throughput if the signal quality is very good.

    Well thats fine, but I cant understand about why the 54mb access to the server is poor, its gets about 90% signal strength
    Capt'n Midnight wrote:
    Are both AP's cabled to the LAN or are you trying to repeat wirelessly ?

    Repeat wirelessly,
    the top ap is obviously wired into a router, but the rest are repeating wirelessly
    Capt'n Midnight wrote:
    You should have only one DHCP server setup otherwise you may get duplicate addresses or other funny stuff. (eg: if the AP's are routing to each other !!)
    When everything is working you could then setup a second DHCP server with the same settings for gateway etc. but handing out a different set of IP addresses for reduncancy. Most routers seem to be able to be able to renew DHCP addresses faster than a Windows server on the same LAN - but I not used 2003 as a DHCP server so can't be certain that would happen there.
    Win2k3 is the only dhcp server but I take your point, but the dhcp is fine for the machines
    Capt'n Midnight wrote:
    run netstumbler in case someone else is using an AP nearby - depending on your card it should also give an indication of noise levels - eg: video senders

    There is another AP with another business somewhere nearby but hes on channel 12, so once again that should be ok, but I will try with netstumbler
    Capt'n Midnight wrote:
    Also the radiation pattern is a doughnut so if you want to get the signal to different floors turn the ap on it's side.
    Done!
    Thanks for your help
    -Toppy-


Advertisement