2 routers hooked up at once?


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Old 02-13-07, 06:34 AM
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2 routers hooked up at once?

Ok let me see if I can explain this without confusing anyone. Right now I have wireless router in my Den on the first floor which is 3 stories below me.......................................well more like 2 1/2 stories, because were I want to do this is in the attic. So right now I have roughly 100 foot run of cat 5 cable going from the Wireless router up to the attic, is there a way I can take my spare wired router and hook it up in the attic and connect another PC to it?

Pretty much what I want to do it use 2 computers up in the attic without having to go wireless or run another wire
 
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Old 02-13-07, 07:20 AM
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Yes you can. You can make the second router act as a switch.

Plug the router upstairs into a computer. Log into it and disable the DHCP on it. Then change its IP address to something like 192.168.1.99 (depending on how the router is setup, could be 192.168.11.99, etc). It will probably reboot and you will loose connection to it.

After that run a cable from a LAN port on the primary router to a LAN port on the secondary router (NOT WAN).

You should have a full connection now. Your secondary router will act as a switch/access point.
 
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Old 02-13-07, 07:21 AM
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This is possible. However, you should use a switch instead of a wireless router. A wireless router will just complicate the issue and confuse you further. Another router will also result in an increased delay (not that you will notice it), an additional level of NAT, etc.
 
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Old 02-13-07, 10:54 AM
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He is not using a wireless router on the other end, he is using a wired router. If it is a spare, it is perfect for this situation. Why spend extra money when he basically has what he needs. You are essentially disabling all router functionality, and making it behave as a switch.
 
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Old 02-13-07, 11:09 AM
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My suggestion requires no configuration of the wired router to use it as a switch. While the configuration is trivial, many people will have no idea how to make the necessary changes, and more importantly will have no idea why they are making those changes and what those changes mean.
 
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Old 02-13-07, 12:58 PM
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Agreed.

So lets help him make the changes if he doesn't know how and explain what the changes do.

griffelkin2002:
Do you have the technical background to make the changes, or do you need more detailed instructions?
 
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Old 02-14-07, 05:52 AM
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Originally Posted by kchinth
Agreed.

So lets help him make the changes if he doesn't know how and explain what the changes do.

griffelkin2002:
Do you have the technical background to make the changes, or do you need more detailed instructions?
I understand a pretty good amount about PC's, I build my own. I understand what MAC addresses are, IP's, DHCP and NAT, and some more stuff. So i'm not a total newb to this. So I'm sure I could handle setting it up I just dont understand the difference between a Switch and a Router? I always thought that they were the samething pretty much.
 
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Old 02-14-07, 07:24 AM
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A router is used to join multiple networks (i.e. WAN and LAN). It acts as a gateway to share the internet between all connected computers. A router also has a DHCP server to assign an IP address to each connected device. A switch is not capable of joining multiple networks or sharing an Internet connection. You only want to use a router when you are connecting two networks (i.e. WAN and LAN). You want to use a switch when you are connecting the same network.

In your situation, disabling the DHCP server on the router will basically turn it into a switch. Ideally you would just purchase a switch, but if you have an extra router laying around, you might as well use it.
 
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Old 02-14-07, 07:29 AM
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A hub is a simple device that connects multiple network runs together. A hub has no intelligence. Any packet coming from one connection is sent out all the other connections. A hub does not pay attention to the packets at all.

A switch is a smart hub. A switch learns what IP addresses live on each connection (by examining packets) and then as new packets arrive it can send the packets only to the connection where the IP address is located. This greatly reduces network traffic by eliminating needless packets from sections of the network.

A router is a smart switch. A router is used to connect multiple networks together. It can learn (or be told) information about specific networks and can make translations when necessary for routing.

A router in a residence or business has specific tasks that it performs for home or business networking. Generally it is the gatekeeper between the home or business network (intranet) and the outside world (which includes the network of the ISP and eventually the Internet). Most perform NAT (network address translation) which means that packets destined for the Internet have their local IP address changed to that of the router itself. Then when the response is returned, the response is then routed to the original machine that sent it. This is how computers all over the world can have identical IP addresses (such as 192.168.0.2) and still communicate with each other. Most home and business routers also have built in firewalls that prevent outside queries from infiltrating the home or business network.

In your case you can use your spare router in one of two ways.

You can simply connect it to the cable from the wireless router using the WAN port. It will ask the wireless router for an IP address, it will assign IP addresses to each of the two PCs you connect to it, and it and all functions will work fine. However, you will have trouble attempting to communicate from a PC in the attic to a PC downstairs. Further, Internet connections from the PCs in the attic will be double filtered so to speak. They will be processed by each router before getting to the Internet.

The second method is what kchinth suggested. As he indicated, you need to assign the router in the attic a static IP address. It must be on the same IP subnet as the router downstairs is using. Further, it must be outside the range of IP addresses that the downstairs router is assigning via DHCP. You also must turn off the upstairs router's DHCP functions, so that it does not attempt to hand out IP addresses. Then just use the LAN connections on the router and it will act as a switch.

It is because of all this setup that I recommend just buying and using a switch. A switch requires absolutely no configuration. Just connect it and you are done. Obviously the router setup as a switch requires knowledge of your local network and accessing both router's setup pages. This is something some people may have trouble understanding.

As an aside, I have a similar setup. I have two routers. My main router is a wired router and connects to my fiber optic Internet connection. Sitting right on top of that is my wireless router. I am using my wireless router only as a switch and wireless access point. It merely provides me a way to connect my wireless devices to my home network. I have this setup because the wired router is specific to my ISP and I need (or more properly want) to use it.
 
 

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