[stahly]

just a beginners questions here, probably simple to do, but wasnt sure. i have cable as my internet, i already have a router hooked up for dhcp, but what i am interested in doing is hooking up another router to it so i can have wireless throughout the house. i am pretty sure i have the older router secured, thats why i would like to keep it if thats possible. so i am wondering if its possible to use the new wireless router pretty much as a switch?

thanks...

[ekÆsine]

each router is assigned an internal IP address. Make sure that they are different for each router, if not change them within the configuration setup. disable DHCP on the wireless router. use the uplink port to connect them together.

[Capricorn]

Not sure about his wireless router, but none of the four I've had have an uplink port. Neither did the non-wireless capable one I had either. The newer router's ports are auto switching though. (The old ones were not, so I had to use a crossover cable.)

I've done what you're asking about. I just ignored the WAN port on the wireless router and connected a LAN port on the (original) non-wireless router to a LAN port on the (new) wireless router. I shut off the DHCP server on the wireless router (you don't want two DHCP servers) and gave the wireless router's LAN port a fixed IP address that the wired router's DHCP server doesn't serve so there would be no conflict. The other PCs hooked into the wireless LAN's switch and the wireless PCs (laptops in my case) were able to broadcast for and get a DHCP-assigned IP addresses from the DHCP server on the old wired router.

I can't recall if there was a way to or I had to set the gateway address (and DNS servers). You shouldn't have to. I think I set that all up in the fields for the WAN (Internet) side of the wireless router just in case. I set its IP address the same as the LAN IP address. (There was never a cable connected to the WAN port, so setting that really shouldn't matter.)

[mikesgroovin]

Just to clarify, the WAN or INTERNET ports on these small gateway routers (wired or wireless) are in fact just another name for UPLINK ports. same thing. it's just a matter of finding out if a deivice like a cable/dsl modem, a PC or another gateway/router or switch is a DCE or DTE deivce. no matter though.
you have a couple of options here......you can either do the above. just link the new wireless gateway/router to the old wired one from lan port to lan port. or, the easiest way would be to connect the wireless gateway/router's WAN port to that of the wired one's LAN port. you can set both of them as a DHCP server....won't matter. Your wireless device will obtain an external address from the wired router and the wireless computers will obtain addresses from the wireless router. in any case....they will all be able to reach the internet. Accessing file and printer shares will be more difficult if you go the second route. again.....just depends on what you are after....internet sharing, file/print sharing or both.

[ekÆsine]

The uplink port is shared with port 1 so you lose a port when uplinking. Sounds like you've got it working though.