Be Excellent To Each Other

Hallo!

due to the new location of my desktop (second floor of the house) and the usual area of use of the laptop (ground floor) the modem router I have is stationed in the first floor. However, this means I can't plug the Eggbox into the modem router, as the Eggbox is on the ground floor. I'd like to avoid buying an spenny Eggbox wireless thingy if I can help it. I have a spare router lying around, and I was wondering if (and if so how) I could use the spare router to act as a relay downstairs, and plug the Eggbox into that?

Or do I not understand how these things work at all, and this is impossible?

Advice and abuse equally welcome

FAOD, for the purposes of this puzzle I can't move the desktop, modem router or Eggbox from their current floors of residence.

Buy a longer cable from maplins and trail it up the stairs.

Yes, you can use it like that. I'm not sure of the specifics as I'm still in bed, but it can be done.

Yes you can, every router has a different way of setting that stuff up though, so if you could be specific as to make and models of routers, that would help.
In theory it should work, but different model routers may not play well with each other or have the options.

They're both Netgear. I'll check the model numbers later, but I'm assuming that means they'll play nicely together.

It doesn't matter what make they are, routers are routers. They route.
You'll have to cable the two together, and make sure you switch off DHCP on the second router.

Ah... you've never done networking before, it seems.

Unless I've misread and you want to connect the two routers together wirelessly, which probably isn't going to happen.

Why are people saying this is possible? It's mostly not, unless you have a router that specifically supports it (very rare) or can run DD-WRT or Tomato (less rare but needs more legwork).

And why are people suggesting that (if it's not a wireless thing) it might be hard?

It's this.

It should be possible. However thinking about it, most routers who give you this option then won't allow you to use wireless as the wireless is used for the link...

Well, that's fine, as he wants to wire the 360 in.
I disagree about it's possibleness, however.

Erk - ok. I want to connect the wireless router modem to the wireless router by wireless, and then plug the Eggbox into the wireless router by cable. I'm gathering that's not going to happen?

Can you not get wireless relays, then?

I'd go for the long cable and a hole drilled in the floor/ceiling. Cables are better anyway! Just drown the wife's moans and cries out with the sound of your power drill.

I assume he wants to use wireless at some point in the house though, it will knock it out for both routers.

I had a wireless connection setup between my draytek and netgear before I realised why my wireless wasn't letting me connect anymore

For fuck's sake. We can put a man on the moon but we can't even get routers to talk to each other wirelessly? No wonder we don't have flying fucking cars.

Fucking technology, bollocks.

Sure we can. (Expensive) Apple and Draytek routers do this. Cheap Netgear ones do not.

Yes, you can, as I have one for upstairs. If it's only the Xbox you want to use on it, though, you may as well just buy the wireless receiver instead of fucking around.

Sure - search for "wireless bridge".
Another solution is to run it through the mains with something like this: http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalo ... EUQ8gIwAQ#

Well, I was hoping to avoid spending 40 quid and use my (not cheap at all, thank you Dr IT equipment snobface*) existing Netgear kit. If I'd have to set up a new wireless or mains network anyway, I'll pay for the Xbox wireless adapter.


*Actually free, as Craster has, for some reason, supplied all my network equipment. Lovely, if bonkers, man.

In my house, that works a treat. No convinced it would work all that well in K's.

Is that because I have several iterations of mains rings stuck together as the house got older?

Yes.

If he's anything like me, he's got a stack of old free ones that companies send you.

IMHO, I'd drill a hole, run a network cable and plug your spare router into the main one, then run a short cable from that spare one to your 360. That way you've got room for expansion, your 360 goes faster and you have a better wireless connection downstairs.

You could plug the xbox into the laptop, however, that kinda defeats the point of a laptop.

Yeah, that would be a good idea, but unfortunately wouldn't be easily possible with the house layout and materials. Simplest and easiest solution appears to be a wireless adapter, so I'll order one of those.

Tsk.

This is what I did and it works well, apart from a niggling problem with my 360 reporting wrong NAT settings that I have never bothered to sort.

By the time you've faffed around with a bridge you might as well have stopped being tight and bought the wireless adaptor. It's £38 which is only a fiver more than I paid for the 2 wireless repeaters I have which can also act as bridges.

My solution was to run a cable and buy two gigabit switches, I have more ports than I can shake a stick at in each location, yet still don't seem to have enough....

Depending on your timescale, I'll be able to offer you my wireless adapter for cheaps

Oooh - I have no particular timescale in mind, so that would be most excellent, Mr Dave! Thank you!

Vote Mr Dave for free wireless adaptors all round!

Ok, I'll let you know when it's available. Still waiting to hear on a moving day, it'll be shortly after that.