Wireless Router and Wireless Access Point setup?

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KapsZ28

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So, I am looking for recommendations on what would work best. If you are using a Linksys Wireless Router in the basement and setting up a Linksys Wireless Access Point on the second floor. Would you set both of them up using the same exact SSID and Encryption Key, or would you give them separate SSID's? I've done it both ways, but never really played around with it enough to see what works better. Does it even matter, or would a wireless laptop just connect to whichever is broadcasting stronger given that you don't set either of them as a preferred network?

This will be used for a Windows XP machine.
 
I setup something very similar. I have a Linksys Wireless Router (NAS, desktop) and a Wireless Access Point for my wireless needs (notebooks, Wii. etc). I did it because my chics notebook kept dropping the signal to the Linksys, no matter if she was on the second floor or the first of my house. I had the WAP stored in my closet because the Linksys router was supposed to be an all-in-one solution but found out the wireless was junk.

I simply set them up in bridge mode with the same SSID's, channels and encryption. Works perfectly and my girls notebook hasn't dropped a wireless signal since. If you want to have a complete non-fragmented Network, I'd go for how I set it up. All my PC's can see and talk to each other (Vista and XP)5 machines in total, 3 wireless and 2 desktop. All can access the NAS.

To answer your other questions, if you were to broadcast 2 different SSID's in your house, your device would ask you which network would you want to connect to and of course you'd see the signal strength of each broadcast and make your decision accordingly. Since its an access point, access points do not do DHCP, the Ap would channel all wireless devices to the router and the router would assign them an address regardless of SSID I believe.

The choice is yours.
 
Ah, that makes sense. Bridge mode sounds like the way to go. Thanks a bunch!
 
Actually, the more I read it doesn't sound like bridge mode allows wireless devices to access the WAP. I specifically have a wireless bridge in my house and that connects wirelessly to my router, but the bridge is then hard wired to a PC.

This is from Linksys about the WAP I bought.

"In Wireless Bridge mode, the Access Point
can ONLY be accessed by another access point
in Wireless Bridge mode. In order for your other
wireless devices to access the Access Point, you
must reset it to Access Point mode. The two
modes are mutually exclusive."

That sounds like the WAP must be setup in Access Point mode in order for wireless devices to access it. If set to bridge mode, it will only communicate with another Access Point, which doesn't extended wireless capability, but rather wired capability.

Maybe we are just using the wrong terms, or maybe I am interpretting something wrong. I was looking at using the same exact SSID and encryption keys, but does the WAP need to be in Access Point mode, or Bridge mode?
 
Depends on your WAP. What your talking about is called "point-to-point" or "multi point" bridging. These modes communicate with single(or multiple) bridge-mode wireless access points only. For basically "linking" a network signal wirelessly over a short distance.

My setup is in "client mode" It operates as a client bridge only and sends traffic to either a remote AP (Infrastructure) or a peer device (Ad-Hoc).
 
Thanks. I actually lucked out and was able to re-configure the customer's laptop and router to work better than whoever originally installed it. So he is still using just one router with full coverage.
 
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