Can I do this? Wireless Repeater

[CheeseClown]

Hi,

I have a wireless N router downstairs and a Linksys wireless N card in my computer upstairs. It works alright but I have the worst luck with wireless cards. This card in particular, I guess the driver keeps freezing my Vista 64 machine forcing me to hard reboot everytime. I'd like to just use my on-board NIC and not deal with a wireless card.

So basically, can I use my wireless G router (WRT54g), put DD-WRT on it, make it act as a reapter, hook my computer to one of its 4 ports from my on-board NIC with Ethernet cable and have internet access?

Here's a drawing of what I want to accomplish - sorry if it's bad.

 

[[h]ardc[h]ris]

If you have two routers and one is DD-WRT you can turn it into a bridge and yes it will work.

Or you could buy a wireless bridge.

 

[CheeseClown]

Oh, excellent.

I have a D-Link Wireless N router, would I have to get a D-Link wireless N bridge? I saw the D-Link DAP1522 which is GigaBit and Draft-N so I assume that would work.

 

[Gott]

Now you just need to find that particular model in stock.

 

[Riccochet]

I didn't think you could use a Linksys as a wireless repeater to a D-link router. At least I couldn't get my WAP54G to repeat the signal from my DGL-4300.

 

[Gott]

I didn't think you could use a Linksys as a wireless repeater to a D-link router. At least I couldn't get my WAP54G to repeat the signal from my DGL-4300.

I'm not sure, I've never done it before.

 

[Madwand]

So basically, can I use my wireless G router (WRT54g), put DD-WRT on it, make it act as a reapter, hook my computer to one of its 4 ports from my on-board NIC with Ethernet cable and have internet access?

You wording is confusing. It sounds like you just need a wireless bridge -- something to connect wirelessly to the main router/AP and share that connection with locally wired clients.

A repeater would also broadcast a wireless signal for additional local wireless clients. If you don't really need this sort of repeating, it's better to avoid it, as it incurs a performance penalty.

DD-WRT on a compatible device (check the docs and hardware revision info carefully) can do all of this and more, at some non-trivial setup complexity. You'd need to go through 3 sets of docs: 1. Supported devices. 2. Flashing firmware. 3. Setting up client bridge mode. If you really want repeating, the next step is not hard at this point: 4. Switch to repeater bridge mode and set up a virtual interface for "repeating".

Several off-the-shelf devices such as the DAP-1522 can do the bridging part, but not many can do repeating without placing specific requirements on the main router/AP.

 

[EazyM3]

+1 for installing DD-WRT. I've had 2 Linkys routers whose WAN ports had died on me, but I was able to install DD-WRT on each of them, and then used them as wireless bridges instead. Works great!