Support -- Multi-Router Network

[theLumberJack]

I set up my network to have two routers today. It seemed to be working fine with everything until I went for a walk and came home and my phone couldn't connect to the network anymore. It gets stuck on obtaining IP address for a while, then it says "Avoided Bad Connection." Ideas?

 

[VintagePC]

sooo... first thing we need to know is what the reason is you're setting up two routers on the same network (signal strength, etc) , and what kind of network (I gathered wireless).

That'll help us figure out how they need to be connected and configured for your situation. (Right now it sounds like they are competing at being DHCP servers for the network. That's a bad thing.)

 

[Reechard]

Vintage beat me to it by virtue of time zone. I saw this last night and phone is not conducive to the type of reply needed here, but yeah, it sounds like either your router is trying to give you an IP that's already in use on the network, or that you're trying to get 2 different IPs from 2 different routers.

 

[theLumberJack]

I have two for signal strength as the first one doesn't cover the whole house well. DHCP is disabled on the secondary router. The secondary router is on the same subnet with its own IP address, and has the same SSID and passkey

 

[theLumberJack]

I have the channels set to auto, should I have them set to distinct channels?

 

[theLumberJack]

Had my second router in the DHCP range, so fixed that and rebooting both routers. Seems to be working now

 

[Reechard]

If they're both connected via Cat5 cable, you should be able to just shut off DHCP on one or the other and only have 1 DHCP source on your network.

 

[VintagePC]

Also check your secondary router's firmware for a setting to set it up as a wireless repeater or wireless bridge. That's ideally what you're trying to do. I don't think the default of setting a network name and passkey works since it'll confuse the hell out of whatever is trying to connect as there will be two different access points with differnt BSSIDs (not SSIDs) and responding to the query for a connect (unless you can make the coverage zones absolutely exclusive.

Not all firmwares provide bridge/repeater/extender mode, you might be able to get that feature if one of your routers supports an openWRT based firmware like tomato, DD-WRT, etc.

 

[theLumberJack]

When setting up a WAN interface in my routers settings I have the option for a bridge mode. I will try this

 

[theLumberJack]

If I put my second router in a DMZ, can I have both routers using the connection with their own wireless network? Like I would have a wireless network for the basement and a wireless network for upstairs from the separate routers, both with internet access.

 

[VintagePC]

that, or just use a cable from the WAN port on the secondary router to a normal port on the primary one.