Question Router(Repeater) to Main Router Connection Problem

[spkenn5]

Hi All, I am currently using an old huawei router given by ISP for day to day use, but currently facing a weak-signal problem in my room, therefore I thought to replace the router with the new one would do it (since the router is quite old), but after buying a new router DIR-825+, it did not solve the problem, so I thought I would just use the newly bought router as a repeater since it comes with that feature.

Main Router:
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
DHCP: On
Range: 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254
WPA/WPA2: password enabled

Repeater
Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1
DHCP: off
WPA/WPA2: password enabled

Currently, I set up the network to something like this with 2 routers broadcasting signals

Experiment A:
Modem -- Huawei Router(broadcasting) -- DIR-825+(repeater)

Experiment B:
Phone Tether -- DIR-825+(repeater)

In experiment A, the connection between repeater and main router is not successful, I can see the IP address of the router is not automatically set by main router DHCP, it should fall under 192.168.1.x network.

In experiment B, the connection between repeater and my phone is successful, I can see the IP address of the repeater changed to my phone's gateway, before 192.168.0.1 now 192.168.43.50

I wonder what did I do wrong in setting these?

 

[Ralston18]

If I am following correctly , the main router is the old Huawei router at 192.168.1.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 - correct?

To use the new DIR-825 router as the repeater you need to configure the DIR-825 with s static IP address via the Huawei router.

For example; you could assign and reserve an IP address 192.168.1.2 for the DIR-825 on the old Huawei using the DIR-825's MAC. Again, that reservation would be done via an initial wired connection between the old Huawei and the DIR-825.

Then on the old Huawei you will need to change the allowed DHCP IP address range to 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.20 - no need to have the full range of IP addresses permitted if there are only a few devices on your network.

That all said, does the following link match your new router?

https://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DIR-825-Extreme-N-Dual-Band-Gigabit/dp/B001F7HLRC

What make and model cable modem do you have?

My thought is that the there may be other reasons for the "weak signal" problem and that keeping the old Huawei router may be being counterproductive.

E.g., connection path (verify)

ISP ---> cable modem ---> Ethernet cable --->[WAN] DIR-825 [LANs] --- ethernet cable ---> wired devices and ~wireless ~> Wireless devices.

The weak wireless signal problem may be solvable via a frequency or channel change. Or some simple configuration change on the applicable wireless network adapter(s) in your room. What is being connected in your room - just a phone, or a PC....?