two netgear routers

I am using two netgear routers (WGR614 and MR814) for the following situation. I have the WGR614 as the 'main' router and the MR814 as an access point. The MR814 is configured with DHCP off and the ip address assigned outside the range of the WGR614's ip range.

This works fine with my current setup which is as follows: Hooked to the WGR614 is

1 wireless computer 1 wired computer 1 xbox with xbox live 1 ethernet cable going to the MR814

The MR814 has an external antenna that reaches one other computer in a workroom (the workroom is actually a seperate building) behind the house wirelessly.

My problem is that I have gotten a new notebook computer and am trying to use it in the workroom also. It is showing a strong signal from the MR814, but not an ip address. When I take it into the house, it connects with no problems to the WGR614. What am I missing to get the notebook and desktop in the workroom online at the same time?

I tried turning DHCP on for the MR814, but it kills the computers hooked to the WGR614. Any ideas?

Reply to
hoopjd2
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If I'm not mistaken, the MR814 is a wireless B router ONLY while the WGR614 is a B/G wireless router. It is common to make the outdated device as your main router and the newer device as the wireless access point. The reason your new notebook is accessing the WGR614 is because the adapter card inside probably has a preferred setting of "G", especially if it's an intel card like the one inside my newest laptop. Even though the wireless band setting is set to B & G, the preferred setting is set to G. Meaning: If a B and a G device are both present, your card will attempt to access the device G. Therefore, check your adapter card's settings. If you decide to not make the WGR614 your access point, then change your new computer's adapter card settings to wireless B mode only. That "should" solve your problem.

Reply to
Doug Jamal

I tried that, and it did not work. I actually did not find any setting to specifically choose b only, but when I look at the details, it shows connection to the b network.

I am not sure what is going on. Any other ideas?

Reply to
hoopjd2

Hooking to routers in series will work, but only if you they are on different IP address blocks. For example, the default IP block for both the WGR614 and MR814 is 192.168.0.xxx which will not work. You should be able to make it work by changing the LAN side IP address for the MR814 to 192.168.111.1 and turning back on the DHCP server. The

111 can be anything from 1 to 254 but should NOT be the same as what's used by the WGR614.

However, you really should not have two routers in series. Lots of complications with this setup. Instead convert the MR814 from a wireless router to just an access point (disabling the router section in the process). To do this:

  1. Change the IP address of the MR814 to 192.168.0.2. It shoud be in the same IP block as the WGR614 but not duplicate the WGR614's IP address.
  2. Turn OFF the DHCP server. The Laptop will get its IP address from the WGR614.
  3. Ignore the WAN (internet) port on the MR814. It's not to be used.
  4. Connect a cable from a LAN port on the WGR614 to a LAN port on the MR814. Check the lights on the front of the boxes to make sure you have the correct polarity cable connection. This normally requires a cross over ethernet cable, but I think the WGR614 has autopolarity ethernet connections.

That should do it.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Sorry it took so long to reply. I have still not gotten it to work. Here is my current setup.

Netgear WGR614 is hooked to the cable modem. Address for it is

192.168.1.1. (It is set for an address range of 192.168.1.2 thru 192.168.1.51)

I have an ethernet patch cable running from port 4 of the WGR614 to port 4 of the MR814. The MR814 has an ip address of 192.168.1.50. The MR814 has an external antenna hooked to it that sends the signal to a desktop computer in a seperate building/shop behind my house. The MR814 has DHCP turned off. The desktop gets a great signal and I have had no problems at all with it since I originally set up the network. I have a Netgear PCI wireless card in it.

My problem comes in with a notebook computer I just purchased. It is a Dell Inspiron 9300 with built in wireless card. It shows it is getting a good signal and even finds my wireless network, but will never pull an IP address to actually get online. I cannot figure it out.

There was a question before about which router it was getting signal from. Both the desktop and notebook computer are getting wireless signal from the MR814. My reason behind this is that I unplug the MR814 and I lose signal on both computers. I don't know what else to try. Any other ideas or suggestions?

Reply to
hoopjd2

Ensure the lappy is in DHCP mode.

Try connecting the laptop via cabled ethernet, see if that works. If not, you have a general networking problem w/ the lappy. Ensure both notebook and router are using the same protocol eg 11b. The laptop may default to 11g.

Turn off all security on your routers. If this solves it, you have an encryption key problem, mac address denial etc.

Mark McIntyre

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Ok, here is what I tried and think for some reason that I have found the problem. Should have thought of this far before now...I took the notebook and physically started right at the MR814. Connected fine with no problems at all. (This tells me everything is set up ok with that. Yes, I was connected to the MR814 access point. I unplugged the MR814 and lost connection on the notebook.) Began to slowly walk away from the MR814 toward the building/shop behind the house. When I get about 2/3 of the way there, I begin to lose connection. Still shows good signal, but no connection.

What I did to monitor this is to loop a ping test so I could watch when I began to lose packets. I didn't lose any packets at all until 2/3 of the way there. At that point, it began to lose most of the packets. The wireless signal was around 50-60% (which windows actually rated as good), but at that point, I lost all of the packets in the ping loop. Start to walk back towards the MR814 and start to get the connection back, not losing any packets at all.

So am I reasoning correctly that this is a signal problem...that it is too far or interference with the signal? I don't understand why it would have a good signal but not be able to connect, but that seems to be the case to me. Does this sound right, or am I just way off base here? Thanks again for the input.

Reply to
hoopjd2

how far?

Consider old fashioned radio, the sort you listen to. You can have terrific signal, but be unable to hear the station because its swamped in background noise. What causes the noise varies, but wifi is subject to multipath, corner effects etc etc same as any wave.

Mark McIntyre

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

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