Trouble setting up router as access point. PLEASE HELP!

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rickyz

Limp Gawd
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Sep 16, 2008
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So I've been dealing with this problem for two days and I am unsure of what I am doing wrong. Maybe you gurus can help me.

I want to extend my network by using an old router (ZyXel X-550) as a wireless access point. I turn off DHCP and set a new IP (192.168.1.3) as per all instructions/guides I could find on google. I then connect the WAP to the main router (Netgear WPN834B running DD-WRT - 192.168.1.1) and I can't get any internet connection. I check ipconfig and my computer is not being assigned an IP as it is still a 169.x.x.x with a subnet of 255.255.0.0.

What am I doing wrong? I have even tried reversing routers by using the ZyXel as the main router and the Netgear as the WAP and it still does not work. I have rebooted both routers and tried ipconfig release/renew. Please help!
 
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Whenever I converted a router over to a switch/access point only, I never used the WAN connection. Simply just used one of the eth0 connections.
 
Can you set the gateway on the zyxel? Is there a firewall on it that you can disable?
 
Under LAN settings, they only have IP address and Subnet mask... nothing about gateway. There are settings under WAN but pretty sure that's not used. I disabled the SPI firewall and rebooted but still no internet access.
 
make sure you turn off the dhcp server in the device you are using for a WAP, ive done this so many times :) but make sure you remember the default ip OR write it down so you can configure it later if need b.
 
rickyz said:
Under LAN settings, they only have IP address and Subnet mask... nothing about gateway. There are settings under WAN but pretty sure that's not used. I disabled the SPI firewall and rebooted but still no internet access.
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What number do you have the cable plugged into ?
 
dashpuppy said:
make sure you turn off the dhcp server in the device you are using for a WAP, ive done this so many times :) but make sure you remember the default ip OR write it down so you can configure it later if need b.
Click to expand...

I have turned off the DHCP server in my WAP (ZyXel X-550) and I set the default IP as 192.168.1.3 to be under the same subnet as the Netgear router, 192.168.1.1
 
Your cable is good?

Can you manually set an ip?
 
if you connect to your access point with a cable will it then work?,

have tried forcing an ip on laptop (assuming its a laptop, you didn't say... but it really dosen't matter)?


maybe for some reason your 'access point' isn't forwarding dhcp from your router like it should, dose your router have any config settings for router behind router? (if it dose, you might be able to turn dhcp on, on the access point, this will get you access to the net, but you may lose windows networking..)

/edit damn you scotty
 
This is a real shot in the dark, but I am wondering if this is something to try. Do you have a spare cross-over cable that you can try to connect the two routers? Everything time I ran router to router using the second one as a switch/AP I used straight through but who knows.
 
If not, I would stay on the cable part as well like scotty mentioned - check to see if the cable is good. We just had a situation today at a client's site that a computer had activity lights, and was pingable on the network, but could not access the network or internet. We tried a lot of different things as far as settings go, then focused on the hardware level and swapped in another cable. Sure enough, for some reason, it worked. That bad cable, btw, worked on another computer. I bet there is a break in it though somewhere.
 
another thing you could do, is plug another cable into your (wap device ) and plut the other end into your laptop, you should get a ip address from the netgear.

Cable checking should be looked at too :)
 
The cable is definitely good. I can get internet connection when I plug directly into the Netgear router so I assume that means it's good. It's also a homemade Cat5e cable.

I have manually set an IP and tried to access the Netgear router when plugged into the Zyxel router but no good. I'll try turning on DHCP to see if I get internet.

I was thinking about making a crossover cable but both routers should autosense the polarity so the cable shouldn't matter right?

BTW, thanks for all the suggestions.
 
um, a dumb question perhaps, but does the ZyXel X-550 support being a wireless access point?
to be an access point, it has to connect to another wireless network, and get an ip address. then if acting as an AP it will route its wired network through the wireless. if an extender it will support its own wireless network and route it through the primary.

so for AP you need to be able to give a authentication method/password/network to access the other network
and for extender I suspect you might need similar (although I am not familiar with them)
 
WOWOWOWOW... it was the cable! That is amazing... I wasted almost 24 hours on this because of a cable. Thanks a lot for the help! Problem solved. Solution was so simple too...
 
rickyz said:
WOWOWOWOW... it was the cable! That is amazing... I wasted almost 24 hours on this because of a cable. Thanks a lot for the help! Problem solved. Solution was so simple too...
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always is simple, however you learned something witch is the plus side :)

Jase
 
jiminator said:
um, a dumb question perhaps, but does the ZyXel X-550 support being a wireless access point?
to be an access point, it has to connect to another wireless network, and get an ip address. then if acting as an AP it will route its wired network through the wireless. if an extender it will support its own wireless network and route it through the primary.

so for AP you need to be able to give a authentication method/password/network to access the other network
and for extender I suspect you might need similar (although I am not familiar with them)
Click to expand...

Nope. Any wireless router can act as an AP. It's basically just a bridge; converting wireless network to wired, and wired to wireless.

A repeater/extender connects to an existing wireless network and repeats the signal.

Neither a WAP nor repeater/extender need an IP address. The only thing the IP address is used for, is to connect to the device for configuration.
 
jiminator said:
how do you support encryption on that model?
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Just like an ap most routers have a config pagfe for setting ssid and your security mode. I personally like to leave them wide open and enable the guest accounts on all my machinesm use win xp pro w/ no updates, and then run an old school win2k server also with no patches and all services exposed facing the internet.

j/k.

Lock that shit down.
 
sc0tty8 said:
Just like an ap most routers have a config pagfe for setting ssid and your security mode. I personally like to leave them wide open and enable the guest accounts on all my machinesm use win xp pro w/ no updates, and then run an old school win2k server also with no patches and all services exposed facing the internet.

j/k.

Lock that shit down.
Click to expand...

I jsut laughed, because you know so many peoples computers are actually like this!
 
CiscoInside said:
What was wrong with the cable - did you try the crossover?
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Old topic but I have no idea what was wrong with the cable. The cable worked perfectly between the router and the modem but wouldn't work when plugged it between the routers. Very strange. And I didn't try a crossover cable because I had an existing cable that worked fine (which is how I figured out it was a faulty cable).
 
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