1 pc on cable and 1 pc on wireless router

[Karazzi]

Hello Folks.

I am having a little problem making my desktop and laptop speak with each other. I know it is not the best setup of a network but here goes:
My desktop is connected with a cable to the ISP router, so that should be fine.
My laptop on the other hand is connected with a cable to another router, that is then connected to the ISP router. It is done this way, because I use my laptop as a temporary HTPC and I need to be able to use the XBMC WOL solution with my phone, which I can't get to work unless they are connected to the same router in some way. The extra router is a Linksys WRT320N and the IP-configuration is as follows:

ISP router: 192.168.1.1
Desktop: dynamic IP distributed by the ISP router
Extra router: 192.168.0.2
Laptop(static IP): 192.168.0.200

Is there any way to make the two networks talk with each other, so I can transfer files from one PC to another without having to use an external drive? Please tell me, if there is anything you need to know to help me with this problem.

 

[cklaubur]

The secondary router and the laptop should be part of the same subnet as the ISP's router in order to work as desired. I've got a similar setup in my house, mostly to extend the wireless signal from one end of the house to the other. All IP address on your network should have the first 3 octets (the 192.168.x) be the same in order to be visible to each other.

Casey

 

[Karazzi]

I have tried to make the extra router distribute 192.168.1.x IPs and giving the router the IP 192.168.1.2, but last time I tried that, I couldn't get the internet connection to work.

 

[bill001g]

You cannot run 2 routers in your house as routers or your get into the 2 subnet and NAt issue you likely have. You want to run the second route as a AP and run everything on one subnet. This makes the second router into a switch with wireless in effect and all routing is done by the main router.

If you only have the single machine that is required to talk to the main network you can use port mapping or DMZ in the second router to make this work. This problem is exactly the same issue of why you cannot access someones devices from the internet.

 

[cklaubur]

You don't want the second router distributing IP addresses. That just exacerbates the problem you already have. As bill001g said, the second router needs to be switched to run as an access point. Speaking from experience, the WRT320N is a pain to get to run in AP mode if running the standard Linksys firmware. I cheated when configuring the 320N I had by installing DD-WRT over the Linksys firmware, which has a specific setting for AP mode. Basically, you want to turn off the DHCP server in the second router and have it set to only get addresses from the ISP router.

Casey

 

[ferny111]

You'll need to disable bridging on the second router and make it so that it is an access point; you can't have 2 routers acting as routers like that (they really don't like it when you do that 😛)