[phil178821]

I am at college and i currently have a wireless router set up for my roommates and my laptops. about 80 feet away from the router (centrally located) is my bedroom, where i have an xbox and a pc, both requiring wired.

i ran a 100ft ethernet cable up to my bedroom and now i have a second wired router. i didnt think there was anything wrong with daisy chaining the two routers, especially since i get above average speeds on my pc off of the second router.

i however was doing some googling and see that people say you must undertake certain measures, however i cannot find one concise source for info or any that truly agree.

what steps should i take? disabling DHCP on router number two? i also read sometihng about connecting to the second router via is LAN port not WAN. ??


Thanks.

[Trap05]

Just use the lan ports and not the wan and you're done.

[DrSpanky]

if anything make sure both routers are not using the same dhcp ranges (if u can get the second router to forward dhcp requests to the first router) and maybe set the second routers dns and gateway to the ip of the first router where your internet connection is. if thats how your setup is

[phil178821]

hmm.. i just disabled dhcp on router two, made its default ip similar to my main routers (but outside its DHCP range), and plugged the cable from router 1's lan into a lan on router two.

all seems to work but can someone explain to me why plugging the incoming signal into router 2's lan port works and why i shouldnt use the WAN port?

Thanks guys.

[phil178821]

oh yeah, after doing that, the computers through router two see router one and that whole network. so i guess it turned router 2 into a switch.

[~(o)-(0)~]

yeah, thats what turning off DHCP and not using the WAN port does pretty much

nick

[ppe1700]

let me explain about the routers you have..
they are a router with an unmanaged switch, and thats it.

this in mind, if you want to get more ports all you need to do is connect the two together using a LAN port from each and your almost done.
on the 2nd router, disable dhcp, and give it an ip out of the dhcp range of the other router, but in the same subnet so that you can manage it if you need to. and completely ignore its WAN port.
eg,
1. router 1 has ip of 192.168.1.1, dhcp range is 192.168.1.50 - 192.168.1.100 (this gives about 50 available ip's, i only have 15 available ip's so that if my wireless is breached then no one will be able to use it since my scope will have run out, and there is no free space on my network haha)
2. give router 2 192.168.1.2 and turn off dhcp. if you have a cross over cable then use that to connect the two switches together (the LAN side of the routers) that way if it tries to auto sense speed and duplex it should work correctly.

the reason why you should disable dhcp on the 2nd router is so that it wont try to issue an ip address with wrong information and stop the devices getting out to the internet. another thing is, you dont want it to issue an ip thats already been issued causeing the two devices to stop talking on the lan. another reason is that since both switches will be in the same broadcast domain (meaning that the broadcast from a device will be seen by every other device) then dhcp will work with just the one router providing it has enough in its scope

[MadSkillzMan]

Originally Posted by ppe1700

let me explain about the routers you have..
they are a router with an unmanaged switch, and thats it.

this in mind, if you want to get more ports all you need to do is connect the two together using a LAN port from each and your almost done.
on the 2nd router, disable dhcp, and give it an ip out of the dhcp range of the other router, but in the same subnet so that you can manage it if you need to. and completely ignore its WAN port.
eg,
1. router 1 has ip of 192.168.1.1, dhcp range is 192.168.1.50 - 192.168.1.100 (this gives about 50 available ip's, i only have 15 available ip's so that if my wireless is breached then no one will be able to use it since my scope will have run out, and there is no free space on my network haha)
2. give router 2 192.168.1.2 and turn off dhcp. if you have a cross over cable then use that to connect the two switches together (the LAN side of the routers) that way if it tries to auto sense speed and duplex it should work correctly.

the reason why you should disable dhcp on the 2nd router is so that it wont try to issue an ip address with wrong information and stop the devices getting out to the internet. another thing is, you dont want it to issue an ip thats already been issued causeing the two devices to stop talking on the lan. another reason is that since both switches will be in the same broadcast domain (meaning that the broadcast from a device will be seen by every other device) then dhcp will work with just the one router providing it has enough in its scope

thats exactly right...you probably noticed that the computers on separate routers couldnt see each other on shared folders and such

Actually if your DSL modem has a dhcp server, you disable dhcp in both routuers.

Ive actually given up on routers...ive accumulated os many PC's i just scored a rackmount 24 port switch, and let the DHCP in the modem do the assigning.

[phil178821]

thanks guys.. i got all of that, the only thing that really confused me and i still dont understand, is the whole lan to lan connection. i get that to see eachother on the same network, then you dont want to use router 2s WAN port, but i just never would have thought that an incoming signal on a lan port can be an internet source for the rest of the ports. i guess its just my lack of knowledge about how switches work?

thanks again guys.

[MadSkillzMan]

yea, you just wont use the WAN port at all.its just LAN to LAN when playing with switches

Ive told people time and time again, if you know your going to run into the problem of needing more than one oruter, save yourself the money and buy yourself a SWITCH (not a hub) you can get more ports out of one for FAR cheaper than a router