Advice needed - hostel net problem.

Biggins

A friend owns a hostel and the walls are fairly think due to the age of the building.
He has a standard G-router on the ground floor for a computer he has there.
Its directly connected into an Eircom router by yellow cable.

Now he has a private office at the top of the building and the router is not strong enough to get there due to the thickness of the walls.
So he bought a wireless N-router (see below)





So he has now a cable going from the original Eircom router, to the newer router that is in his attic (and near his office).
The sales guy told him the new one would act as a "booster" for the original signal.
- Question one: is this correct?

The problem is that the newer wireless router is doing nothing for him.
I suspect (and I could be very wrong) that the new router is trying to operate on its own, not be a booster. The lights are all lighting up but no better signal is being gained by any pc/laptop in the high-up office

- Question two: If he bypasses the origional Eircom router and connects the new stronger router to the incoming building phone-line (by the cable already there connecting the eircom one to the other), shouldn't he have (a) a better signal now for the whole building downwards and (b) all he needs is a connector to join a standard phone connector end to a DSL connector end so he can join the cable from the phone socket below, to the new wireless router above?

I hope all that makes sense.

Spear

Biggins wrote: »

A friend owns a hostel and the walls are fairly think due to the age of the building.
He has a standard G-router on the ground floor for a computer he has there.
Its directly connected into an Eircom router by yellow cable.

Now he has a private office at the top of the building and the router is not strong enough to get there due to the thickness of the walls.
So he bought a wireless N-router (see below)



So he has now a cable going from the original Eircom router, to the newer router that is in his attic (and near his office).
The sales guy told him the new one would act as a "booster" for the original signal.
- Question one: is this correct?

The problem is that the newer wireless router is doing nothing for him.
I suspect (and I could be very wrong) that the new router is trying to operate on its own, not be a booster. The lights are all lighting up but no better signal is being gained by any pc/laptop in the high-up office

- Question two: If he bypasses the origional Eircom router and connects the new stronger router to the incoming building phone-line (by the cable already there connecting the eircom one to the other), shouldn't he have (a) a better signal now for the whole building downwards and (b) all he needs is a connector to join a standard phone connector end to a DSL connector end so he can join the cable from the phone socket below, to the new wireless router above?

I hope all that makes sense.

Is the N router connected by it's WAN port to the Eircom router? Are both routers still on the same default subnets and addresses? Is the N router collecting details by DHCP? Does it's DHCP range conflict the the Eircom routers DHCP range?

Biggins

Spear wrote: »

Is the N router connected by it's WAN port to the Eircom router? Are both routers still on the same default subnets and addresses? Is the N router collecting details by DHCP? Does it's DHCP range conflict the the Eircom routers DHCP range?

The N router is connected FROM the Eircom (G) router via one of the four standard available ports on the back of the Eircom router.

As far as I know, the owner might have tried to set up the N router as if it was the only one (as one might do if you were replacing one with the other) - as if that would help him. He got nowhere obviously.

The DHCP is working fine for the Eircom one. Nothing for the N router.

Spear

Biggins wrote: »

The N router is connected FROM the Eircom (G) router via one of the four standard available ports on the back of the Eircom router.

As far as I know, the owner might have tried to set up the N router as if it was the only one (as one might do if you were replacing one with the other) - as if that would help him. He got nowhere obviously.

The DHCP is working fine for the Eircom one. Nothing for the N router.

Then you're going to need to alter the config on the N a fair bit. Personally I'd give the routers static addresses to simplify things. Then set the default gateway addresses to point to the router with the modem. Turn off the WAN interface on the N if possible. Turn off DHCP on all except the router with the modem.

Biggins

Spear wrote: »

Then you're going to need to alter the config on the N a fair bit. Personally I'd give the routers static addresses to simplify things. Then set the default gateway addresses to point to the router with the modem. Turn off the WAN interface on the N if possible. Turn off DHCP on all except the router with the modem.

Ok. Will look into those good suggestions.