Home Network HELP.....please

good one

Hi,
I'd really appreciate some help please.......

What I want to do:

Set up a primary modem/router in the attic (where the broadband comes in)and from that set up wifi in two areas ( upstairs & downstairs). I've very poor signal penetration due to thick walls ,insulation etc. so don't want to use wireless connection.

I want a wired connection to two router/modems to broadcast wi-fi in each area.

What I've got:

Broadband coming into attic.
Cat 5 cables from broadband location in attic to locations where I'd like to set up wifi.
2 No: ZyXEL D1000 modem's (Eircom)
2 No: Huawei HG556a modem's (Vodafone)


What I've tried:

Got the IP address of the primary router.
Identified the DCHP range of the primary router.

Changed the IP address of the secondary router to outside the DCHP range of the primary router.
Disabled DCHP on the secondary router.
Connected the primary modem/router to Eircom broadband.
(working fine, receiving internet)
Plugged in Ethernet cable linking primary to secondary.
No wi-fi internet on secondary.

Looked up google, spoke to others.....tried & tried but I seem to be missing something ( or not)

Tried using ZyXEL D1000 as primary and Huawei as secondary.
Tried using ZyXEL D1000 as primary and a ZyXEL D1000 as secondary.

Checked cables with cable tester, all work.

Any advise appreciated as at this stage I'm p*ssed off..... and very frustrated.

Do I need different routers/modem, if so what do I need.
By the way I'm not that networking/computer savvy.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Regards

Good One

Diggerdunne

Give the second router(zyxel) a fixed ip within the range of your primary router.You need to put the second router into bridging mode so it doesn't try to route... Also u need to give it a subnet mask and the gateway of the primary router. Also change the SSID so u can identify the different networks easily. It should work for you then, not too sure about the zyxel bridging mode but think the vodafone has a bridging mode in the admin menu...

Dermot McDonnell

The HG556a (from vodafone) has an excellent wifi radio, an Atheros AR9223 with MIMO 2x2 antenna array. It will make a far better wifi access point than the ZyXel. Sadly, Vodafone lock it and I believe it cannot be configured to pick up Internet from an ethernet port with their firmware. You can flash an Openwrt firmware that you can fully configure for your desired setup.

Note that the ethernet ports in the HG556a and the D1000 (afaik) are 100M so the cat5 may represent a bottle neck. You may get better throughput by configuring the HG556a as a wireless repeater.

good one

Thanks to Diggerdunne & Dermot McDonnell

Ok, tried what you suggested Diggerdunne to a point.......

But it didn't work.......

Logged in to router
Under Broadband-Internet Connection-General
Changed mode from router to bridge

Then into Home Networking changed
IP address to 192.168.1.2 (not sure about this, as IP address of router is 192.168.1.254 and DCHP range was 192.168.1.1-200)
Changed subnet mask to 255.255.255.255
Could not find any where to give it gateway (Default Gateway?) except when I went back to original settings under Router. When you switch to bridge the option to change Gateway appears to be removed.

Just to confuse me there is a WAN IP address and a Modem address, also an IP subnet mask (255.255.255.255) and a modem subnet mask (255.255.255.0)

Any chance you could spoon feed me here as I'm obviously doing something wrong.

Thanks Dermot for the Huawei advise, I don't think flashing would be for me as you can probably see from my network attempt so far, but I take it that I could use the Huawei as the Primary router and connect the ZyXel's via cat5 to broadcast wi-fi into two areas.

Thanks again for the help.

Diggerdunne

Is Eircom or Vodafone your ISP? If you can connect to the first router with your phone or a laptop it will tell u the default gateway of your router. The subnet mask shud be 255.255.255.0 You will get the info in network settings under tcp/ip
Maybe if u can post screen shots of where u r in trouble i cud possibly help better...
ignore the Wan ip etc as all your stuff is local on your own network..
its quite easy to do,u don't have to change much
Have u verified your cable to the second router is good and terminated correctly?

Bog Standard User

dont know if it possible with the vodafone routers but it is with the d1000

log onto the d1000 and go to network settings > home networking

set the router ip to 192.168.1.201 & 202 respectively (if you plan to use both)

set dns servers to what ever dns servers your internet modem uses

set dhcp to disabled on both

click apply on each

connect each d1000 via ethernet eth1 on d1000 to any of the the gateway modem's ethernet ports (modem connected to the internet) and reboot each d1000

you can match ssid & wpa2-psk to the modem connected to internet but it is optional

good one

Thanks for the advise everyone, but its still not bloody working.

Modem DNS settings:
Broadband-Internet Connections- DNS server-
Primary DNS-Obtained from ISP-0.0.0.0
Secondary DNS-Obtained from ISP-0.0.0.0

Home Networking-LAN Setup-DNS Value
DNS Server 1-DNS Relay 192.168.1.254
DNS Server 2-none-0.0.0.0

I did as you said Bog Standard User but when you disable the DHCP you don't seem to get access to the dns servers to set them to what the modem uses.
I'll try again tomorrow in case I f**ked up.

But I've two options now.

Get someone to help
Or
Can some one suggest a Wired access point to use.


Thanks again for the help.

Bog Standard User

change the dns server info before you change to dsiable dns

good one

Thanks for the advise,
I think I've cracked it.

Changed DNS settings in two locations

Network Settings-Broadband
DNS Server-Primary DNS-user defined-
DNS Server-Secondary DNS-user defined-

and also

Home Networking- change DNS settings before you switch off DHCP

Hopefully it will still work when I put it in location.

Thanks again to all.:D

Diggerdunne

sure let us know and we will help ya if it doesnt work.....

srsly78

When they say disable dhcp they mean disable dhcp server. You can still have the secondary routers act as dhcp client, then they will get their settings off the first.