Network dropping constantly

[jonathani05]

I have installed a networking in a friends house. So basically we are using the combo modem/access point/switch box from the ISP. The box has 4 LAN ports. On 2 ports are connected 2 computers and on the third one we have a second router configured as an access point. We have trouble getting them all to work. What i mean is if we get the onboard access point and the first PC to work the second access point drops internet. If we have the onboard access point and the second access point to work the computers don't have internet. That only possible issue that i can think of is that the combo box is not powerful enough to handle that much devices on board.

Also keep in mind that we have around 10-15 wireless devices at a time on both access points.

The combo box is a ZTE speedport entry 2i.

Thanks for the help.

 

[bill001g]

You likely have something misconfigured. I would guess you have a ip conflict with the devices since you are using a router as a AP rather than a actual AP.

A AP is a fundamentally a very simple device. It takes the radio signals from the end users and converts them to ethernet. From the first routers prospective all the device connected via wifi on the second router all come in on the same ethernet cable. The first router has no way to really tell if there is a switch with ethernet connected devices or it is a wifi connected device.

Because this is so simplistic in function there is not much that can go wrong.

You could have wifi interference between the devices but that would cause a performance issue more than it does not work at all issue.


Be very sure the second router really is only running as a AP.

 

[jonathani05]

The access points are on diffrent floors (that's the reason we have 2 of them) both of them have static IP's . I have noticed that changing LAN ports solves the issue. Looks like the combo box can't handle 3 LAN connections. Will a 8- port switch fix this problem?

 

[bill001g]

I don't much about that box but the vast majority of consumer routers have a small switch chip connected to the 4 lan ports with a 5th port internally going to the main cpu.

The traffic passes between the lan port just as if you had purchased a external switch. Years ago they actually used the same chip as a external switch just soldered on the router motherboard. Now days it is all on the same physical silicon but it functions as separate units.

Since switch chips can run all ports at maximum rate in and maximum rate out all at the same time they can not really be over utilized.

There has to be something else that is causing this. The most common ones are having dhcp enabled on devices you do not know or a conflict in the ip addresses assigned to the AP.