[SOLVED] Dual router home networking questionhey

[CNappi87]

Hey everyone,
I am trying to setup a two router wireless/wired network. I have basic knowledge of networking and router setup and I used to have a setup like this a while back but I can't quite remember how I did it. Heres my situation, Downstairs entertainment center has a smart TV, Game Console hardwired into a linksys router, connected to my modem. The house is hard wired with CAT5 running from this location to my bonus room on the otherside of the house on the second floor. My hope is to connect the downstairs router to this CAT5 outlet and then connect another router upstairs to have both a hard wired connection for the upstairs game console /smart TV as well as wifi for the upstairs portion of my house. If I remember correctly I would need to put the upstairs router into bridge mode, right? At that point do I just assign static IPs to everything including the router/bridge? Can I use the same SSID for the upstairs wifi? Is there anything else Im missing? Thanks

 

[RealBeast]

The easiest thing to do is to connect the upstairs router using on of its LAN ports, turn off its DHCP and give it a static address in the network range but outside the main router DHCP range. Make sure to use different 2.4GHz wireless channels on each (selecting from 1, 6, and 11). In other words turn the upstairs router into an access point with three LAN ports.

You can either use the same SSID or different, I tend to use different with the same passkey so that I can control which AP a device connects to -- devices are stupid and often connect to a weaker signal.

So if your main router is 192.168.x.1 and it has a DHCP range of 192.168.x.2 to 200, make the upstairs AP router 192.168.x.254. The main router will do all the DHCP address assignments for all devices in the house. The upstairs will provide wireless and three additional LAN ports if you have anything else to attach with a cable.

And be sure to use WPA2/AES security on both, and change the default user and password for each router. Also turn off WPS if you have the option, as that is quite insecure.