How do use 2 routers in my house

Needhelp420

Commendable
Jan 26, 2017
11
0
1,510
I have spectrum and a router plugged in (obv) and I have another router that I haven't used in a long time from time warner and I wanted to plug it in my garage to extend it and have 2 routers (I don't wanna use a wifi extender I want 2 routers) I have a cable in the garage and stuff, would I be able to just plug it in and it auto reconnect to my new wifi (spectrum) or do I have to reprogram it? Also idk if this matters but on the old router and wifi (time warner) it was In my brothers name and not mine like the new one (spectrum) , please help and thank you!!
 
Solution
By router do you mean a router, or a router/modem combo?

If both devices have Coax input ports then your second router can not function as an actual router because it has no WAN ethernet port.

Now do you want devices connected to your 2nd router to be issolated from the 1st router or do you want everything to function as 1 large network?
If you plug the line from router 1 into WAN port of router 2 this will make it so that any device on router 1 can not talk to your devices on router 2. Thus yoru laptop in the garage wont be able to print to the printer in the house, or access file shares, stream music/videos to display, etc.
Now if you convert router 2 into an access point and plug cable into LAN port of router 2 then everything...
So what you actually want to do is use the second router as a basic "Access Point". You'll get a second wireless network available from that "router", but both wireless networks and any cabled devices will all connect to your single home network. Is that right?

Some routers do have a wizard/set up mode that will configure them as a simple "Access Point".

If your router doesn't, then all you need to do is disable DHCP, give the router a static IP address on your current home network (but outside the DHCP range), and then plug the ethernet cable into one of the "LAN" ports (*not* the WAN port) on your 2nd router - which will then be functioning as a simple Access Point.

If any of the above doesn't make sense, Google, myself, or someone else here can help you with that.
 
By router do you mean a router, or a router/modem combo?

If both devices have Coax input ports then your second router can not function as an actual router because it has no WAN ethernet port.

Now do you want devices connected to your 2nd router to be issolated from the 1st router or do you want everything to function as 1 large network?
If you plug the line from router 1 into WAN port of router 2 this will make it so that any device on router 1 can not talk to your devices on router 2. Thus yoru laptop in the garage wont be able to print to the printer in the house, or access file shares, stream music/videos to display, etc.
Now if you convert router 2 into an access point and plug cable into LAN port of router 2 then everything will be 1 big network.
To do so you need to find the IP address of your primary router (lets say it is 192.168.1.1, and then set your 2nd router's IP address to be 192.168.1.2 (or if say router 1 is 192.168.10.1 then 2nd router needs to be 192.168.10.2). Then you need to set gateway address on Router 2 to the IP address of Router 1 and dissable DHCP and then reboot router 2. There is likely more detailed guides with pictures if you will google your model number + "configure as access point"
 
Solution