Sweet, Cheap LAN config with two routers

Well, it took me about 10 hours but I finally configured my home network how I wanted it.

Flashback to circa 2003...

I am living in Detroit. I just got DSL and a new Linksys router; plugged in my Linksys wireless router upstairs in the office and hard-wired my computer (call it PC1) to the Linksys router. Good.

Hmmm... Xbox is in the basement. Halo via xbconnect is pretty fun. I have an extra computer (PC2) I can use in the basement to run xbconnect, but how to connect both PC2 and my Xbox to the same LAN without running a bunch of wires?

So I bought a wireless bridge (Linksys WET11) and a 5-port switch (also Linksys) to connect the basement LAN with the upstairs router. Which worked... albeit somewhat poorly.

The wireless router was 802.11b as was the WET11. The range on the Linksys router was very very bad. It barely worked. When it did work and I would shut down the Xbox and/or PC2, invariably the WET11 would eventually crap out from underuse and I would have to reboot the WET11 and/or wireless router. Always a pain. Plus my DSL connection was only 128k upload speed.

Eventually I moved to Indianapolis from Detroit for a new job in 2004. I was working from home, so I sprung for the "Pro" DSL package which is 384k upload or something a little better. I set up the wireless router on the second floor in home office 2 (next to PC1) and hard-wired those together. I got a wireless card for PC2 on the main floor of the house in home office 1 and used the wireless capability of my work laptop. In the new house we have a bonus room upstairs, so the WET11 and switch go there and feed my Xbox. Oh yeah, and I spring for Xbox Live and Halo 2 comes out! 

Laggy. Frequent disconnects. Always have to troubleshoot something and reboot the WET11 or the router. Or both. Multiple times.

So I move the router into the bonus room and hard-wire to my Xbox. I gotta buy a wireless card for PC1 now too. Meanwhile, PC2 and my work laptop are 25 feet further from my POS Linksys 802.11b router and they can't surf the web very well. I basically retire PC2 at this point cause it's old and slow (350 MHz Pentium II) even for 2005. I can't live with the slow access speeds, so I decide to get the flippin' fastest wireless router I can to replace the crappy Linksys I had. I get the Netgear WGT624 - tops out at 108 Mbps wirelessly. Sweet. Much better range for the whole house. I am pretty happy.

Later in 2005... I switch jobs and no longer need home office 2. I buy a 30" secondary HDTV for that room instead. My Xbox DVD drive keeps giving me "cannot load map" errors cause it's the Thomson model. Gotta buy a new Xbox. The old one goes downstairs in the old home office 2 and the new one goes in the Bonus room. I resurrect the WET11 and switch to try to connect them wirelessly.

It sucks. The WET11 is the bane of my existence. I buy some 75' cables and string them all over whenever I host LAN parties. Which is fine for LAN parties, but...

Now it's 2006. I decide to mod my first Xbox (Xbox 1). I buy an Xbox 360 also.

Now I would like to hook up multiple Xboxes downstairs and game against my Xbox360 (still Halo 2 at this point) upstairs. I would also like to use XboxMediaCenter on my modded Xbox and stream content from my upstairs office PC1 to XBMC without running a long ethernet cable.

The WET11 is not a viable option. I need a wireless print server or a better bridge or something. They're all $80 - $130.

I learned that you can actually use two WGT624 routers together. Keep the original one as a router+access point and hack the second one to act as a wireless client (with DHCP disabled). The second router only costs $40 - $60 currently so it is much cheaper than a bridge or separate gaming adapters for each Xbox (or even one gaming adapter for one xbox).

The trick to getting the WGT624 to work as a client instead of as an access point is to run a program called telnetenable on the Netgear router (after you set up the ID, channel, and WEP). Then you need to telnet into your WGT624 and change some settings. Then you need to disable DHCP on the WGT624. Lots of troubleshooting for me at every step (couldn't figure out the login/password for telnetenable, had some DHCP incompatibilities in my PC, had to get the WGT624 out of "noob setup" mode without an internet connection, set the router to "bridge" mode instead of "client" mode, "set remoteAP" returned an error in syntax one time and I have no idea why , timeouts when telnetting, etc.). There are instructions on how to do all this here: http://www.beatjunkie.de/Router_eng.htm. Not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

So, ten hours later... it's all working!

I have a wireless router upstairs. You can plug 4 Xboxes (or PC's) into it wired, plus who knows how many wireless devices.

I have a wireless router downstairs. It is connected to the same LAN as the upstairs router because this router is configured as a client. You can plug 4 Xboxes (or PC's) into it wired, or connect a switch and plug even more Xboxes (or PC's) into it.

There are no wires strewn from upstairs to downstairs. The connection is fast, hopefully reliable long-term (obviously I don't know that yet), and I am DANG PROUD OF MYSELF FOR GETTING IT ALL SET UP!!! 

Thanks for reading this. I welcome any questions while I still remember at least 5% of what I did.