[fatmoe68]

I have two Netgear MR814's. The first is connected to my Comcast cable modem and works fine. I can connect to the internet, email, etc. not problems. I want to set up the second one as a wireless access point that will sit downstair next to my XBox so I can hook it up for some XBox Live action. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get it to work. So far I have changed the IP address on the second router and turned off DHCP as outlined in the instructions found here: http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/N101236.asp. Which are specifically for a different router, but say that they can be adapted to other Netgear products. I have taken the additional troubleshooting steps of turning off WEP, access control lists, and turned on broadcasting of the SSID. No luck. Any suggestions on what to try next or is this a hopeless case?

Fred.

[Capricorn]

I was thinking of one answer, but then realized I'm not sure what you've got set up there. Are you using a cable to connect the MR814s or are you trying to connect them wirelessly?

[fatmoe68]

I am trying to connect them wirelessly. The first one as the main router that maintains the internet connection and DHCP services. The second strictly as an access point and located in a different part of the house (by the TV so I can hook up my XBox and later on Tivo and any other devices that need a network connection).

[Capricorn]

You have a "local" MR814 that connects directly to your cable ISP. Now, you want to add a "remote" MR814 to hook ethernet devices to in another room. So what you are really trying to do is turn the remote MR814 into a wireless Ethernet Bridge like the one the link points to. I think it can be done, but that bridge would have been simpler as that's what it's made for. I'm not even certain this will work. It depends on if the 814 repeats all traffic it sees on the wired ports to the wireless spectrum and vice versa. If I understand how this all works, it must, but ....

The local MR814 (which from now on I'll refer to as "814-master") - the one that connects to your cable ISP - is set up the way it should be. You won't have to do too much with that. I almost want to go out and get another WGT624 like the one I have just so I can try this. Almost. But not enough to spend the money. Therefore, I'm guessing here, but it makes sense - to me -- but sometimes I'm the only one.

That document you linked to is pretty good. If you followed that, you must be pretty close. If you hadn't changed the remote 814's IP address then both the remote MR814 (814-slave) and the local MR814 would think their LAN IP Address is 192.168.0.1. What you would need to do is to set the IP address of 814-slave's LAN port to something other than 192.168.0.1, but also to something that 814-master won't try to assign to somebody else. You probably already past that. I'm guessing the problem is with getting IP addresses assigned to devices on the remote side. Let's check that everything is set up.

Just to check, go go into 814-master's LAN IP Setup (Advanced) and see what range of DHCP addresses it is serving. Probably from .2 through .50 on 192.168.0.xxx. This next step is not absolutely necessary, and if you don't want to mess with the LAN settings on 814-master then skip the next step.

It's probably a good idea to reserve the IP address that 814-slave is going to use in the setup for 814-master. Below the settings for the DHCP server, there's a button to reserve an IP address. Click "Add" and enter the address 192.168.0.100 (or anything outside of the range that 814-master is serving.) Don't use .1 as that's 814-master's internal IP address on the LAN unless you changed it. 814-master's IP address on the LAN is given at the top of the LAN IP Setup page.

If you hadn't already changed it, we'd still have two MR814s that both think they are on the LAN at 192.168.0.1. You may have had to turn 814-master off for a minute or at least stop it's wireless broadcasting so the two don't fight. (Go into 814-master's Wireless settings and uncheck the "Enable Wireless Access Point" check box and apply.) Sounds like we're past that step.

Now, connect a desktop or laptop to one of the LAN ports on 814-slave. (If you can use the Xbox to browse the internet, that should be fine.)

You should have a valid IP address for your subnet at this point. You may need to explicity assign yourself one (192.168.0.102 would be a good one). You should have an IP address like 192.168.0.2 or .3 or ... (type ipconfig with no arguments to see what you've got).

Browse to the IP address of 814-slave like you would to bring up the master's configuration pages. As you already know, you shouldn't have two DHCP servers in the same subnet serving the same addresses, so you turned off the DHCP service on MR814-slave (and only the slave). (It's under the Advanced menu options under LAN IP Setup. Uncheck the check box "Use Router As DHCP Server." We may have to revisit this later, because the problem may be that DHCP requests don't get sent over the wireless connections to the 814-master. That would mean that devices connected to the LAN ports on the 814-slave wouldn't be able to get an IP address on demand. We'll see.)

Next, set 814-slave's LAN IP address "permanently" to the address you reserved in 814-master (or just any address starting with 192.168.0 but after .50). (Go into the Advanced setup for 814-slave in the LAN IP Settings and) Change the IP address at the top of the settings page to the reserved address. In other words, change the IP address in the slave explicitly to not match the IP address of the master, but rather, to be the address you told the master not to mess with. You probably areleady found out that once you make this change, you will no longer be able to browse to 814-slave at 192.168.0.1 because you just told it that's not it's address any more. From now on, browse to 192.168.0.100 (or whatever IP address you chose) to bring up 814-slave's configuration pages. I think this step was already done, so this is just to double-check. It should sound familiar.

Now is the time to make sure that the wireless setup matches on both sides. Set the SSID, Channel, Region, and WEP settings to match on both each other. That is, change 814-slave's wireless settings to match 814-master's settings. If we are lucky, we ought to have effectively established a wireless bridge between the two 814s. (The problem before would have been that both 814s would think they are at 192.168.0.1 on the LAN & Wireless side of the network.)

From the remotely connected machine, try to ping 192.168.0.1 and it should reply. (In a command prompt window, type "ping 192.168.0.1" and hit return.) If so, we're almost good to go. The question is whether you can browse the internet from the remote PC (or Xbox). Try it. If it doesn't work, first bring up a command prompt window, type "ipconfig /renew" to ask for a new IP address from the DHCP server (which is still 814-master). You should get an address like 192.168.0.2 or .3 or .4 like you did before.

If you don't get an IP address at this point, I can think of a couple solutions. The first method is to just permanently set your IP address on the remote machine (e.g., Xbox) to something like 192.168.0.101. (You could even reserve that address in 814-master like you did to reserve 814-slave's IP address.) The second - and more manly - way is to let 814-slave be a DHCP server and serve IP addresses in a discontinuous range in the same subnet by re-enabling the DHCP server (Check the check box "Use router as a DHCP server" in LAN IP Settings), and set it's range to something like 192.168.0.101 to 192.168.0.110. That is, it will answer DHCP requests on the remote side of the wireless connection, but will give out addresses guaranteed not to collide with those on the "local" side.

If you get an IP address that you can browse with by either of the two methods, set your XBox up in a similar manner (either using DHCP or it's own fixed IP address). Hopefully, you're good to go at this point. If not, maybe buying that wireless ethernet bridge is an option.