How to Extend Your Wi-Fi Network With an Old Router
This is the most annoying scenario: You set up a router in your new home or apartment and your Wi-Fi is working flawlessly until you find that downloading (or streaming) stops in an area that is outside of your router’s range, such as the exact the place where you watch Apple TV on the couch, stream music in your workplace, or watch movies in bed.
There are many tricks you can use to increase the range of your existing equipment. If your networking hardware is old or you don’t want to deal with a lot of hassle, I usually recommend buying something new: the best router that supports the fastest wireless speeds your devices can handle, a dedicated Wi-Fi network system transit flight. connection or even a super-cheap Wi-Fi extender if you just need a little more range for simpler tasks.
If you don’t want to spend a dime on setup, you have an alternative: use your old router to extend (or add on) the wireless signal of your main router. You know one – this trusty former workhorse that you keep with you in case of an emergency (or out of laziness).
Instead of letting it collect more dust, you can repurpose your old router to extend your wireless range at home. It won’t be a perfect solution, especially if it’s some old wireless-n router you’re trying to bring into your new world of wireless AC, but it might at least save you some money and possibly give you better performance. wireless than a simpler extender. Don’t waste it, don’t you want to?
Option 1. New access point
The best thing you can do with an old Wi-Fi router that you no longer use is turn it into a simple wireless hotspot. As long as your home or apartment is connected to Ethernet (or you don’t mind running cables), this is an easy way to get wireless in an area that doesn’t already have it (or has a weak signal).
First, connect your old router (WAN port) to your new router (LAN port) and connect your device to your older router. Pull up the settings on your old router – more on how to do this – and see if there is any “access point mode” as it is commonly called. Depending on the router, this might even be called ” bridging mode “, which is confusing and we will look at it later in this article.
You are trying to disable the DHCP server of the router – how the connected devices get the internal IP address from your router. If you don’t, you are committing a network sin by running your router inside the router , which can cause problems for everything you do on devices connected to your second router.
Note: Completing this step will change the IP address that you use to access your router’s settings through a browser if you followed this route. You also need to reboot the router and switch the Ethernet cable from the WAN port to one of the LAN ports. To find the new IP address of your old router, open the configuration of the new router and look for the section that lists the connected devices on your router. Your old router should be one of them.
(You can also probably set your router’s IP address manually on its config screen if you want to remember it that way.)
Place your router in an ideal location wherever you plan to expand your wireless capabilities, as long as you have a long enough Ethernet cable or built-in cabling.
It is convenient to configure your old router’s wireless networks with the same SSID and password as existing wireless networks. I like to give them names different from my existing Wi-Fi networks (same password) because then I can decide which access point to connect to – a newer router or an older router.
Why? Because your devices are probably stupid and cling to a lower power wireless signal for too long, and your old router probably doesn’t have any features to send devices with a bad signal from an access point. Using separate SSIDs for different routers means you’ll need to make sure you’re connected to the correct Wi-Fi network if you move a lot between them, but that’s a small issue that needs to be addressed to improve performance. You don’t want your device to cling to your old router’s mediocre signal if your new router’s faster Wi-Fi is a better option (or vice versa).
Option 2. Use your router’s wireless repeater mode.
Review your router settings (or manual) to determine if it has any mode of “wireless repeater”, “extender” or “ bridge ” – yes, this is again the word bridge that router manufacturers like to use to mean different things … …
If you are not sure if you are choosing the correct mode or not, see if your old router’s manual (or the function description in the router’s user interface) indicates that this mode will allow your old router to connect to another router using its wireless signal. Most importantly, your old router will also need to accept wireless connections from devices.
(Sometimes, when manufacturers of routers say “wireless bridge”, they are referring to the connection of two routers together via Wi-Fi, not allowing you to connect to other wireless clients. In this scenario, any device that you connect to your old router via an Ethernet cable, be connect to your larger network.)
If you think about it, this setup replaces the Ethernet cable from the previous step – the one that connects your new router and your old router – with a wireless signal. This setup also has one important caveat: if you run your old router as a Wi-Fi extender, you will halve the performance for your connected devices. LearnTomato explains why:
“There is a downside to using a wireless bridge in repeater mode and WDS. If the secondary router re-broadcasts the wireless signal (instead of connecting the client computers with a wire), the wireless bandwidth in the secondary building will be cut in half. Each transmission is called a “jump”. The second wireless hop is the one that gets hit. […]
Typically, wireless clients connected to a second router will not perform as well as wireless clients connected to a first router. Why? Because the transmitter in the second router has to do twice the work. It must first receive the signal from the main router and then re-transmit it to the wireless clients. “
This is why you are always better off using an Ethernet connection where possible to connect your access points to your main router. A wireless bridge may be more convenient, but your speed may suffer.
If your router is not a repeater, make it
Chances are, your router, even if it’s old (or cheap), doesn’t have options built into the user interface to be used as an access point or repeater. Resist the urge to throw this router in the trash, because you still have a chance to bend it to your will. You’ll need to flash it with third-party firmware – the software you’ll interact with to change its settings – which can help you unlock features that you couldn’t play with before.
I love using DD-WRT , but you can also try OpenWRT or Tomato – or even AdvancedTomato if you want a nicer GUI. You will need to do a bit of digging to see what firmware works with your particular router (if any), and be aware that your router might have different versions as well. (This is what you will likely refer to every third-party firmware by checking the label on the bottom or back of your router.)
It is important to get the correct firmware and the correct version of this firmware for your particular router, as reprogramming your router with the wrong firmware can cause a number of problems that can take much longer to fix . You can check support for your particular router here:
Since I practice this on the TP-Link Archer C7, I decided to use the good old DD-WRT. I started by looking at the bottom of my router to make sure I had the “v2” hardware version and then downloaded the appropriate firmware (factory-to-ddwrt.bin) from the DD-WRT site.
Then I went to the regular web interface for Archer C7 by typing the typical 192.168.0.1 in my web browser and went to the section that you usually use to update the router firmware with a new way from TP-Link. … Instead, I selected the DD-WRT .BIN file I just downloaded and allowed it to be copied.
… and nothing happened.
As is sometimes the case, the firmware update process did not accept an image that was clearly not received from TP-Link. If this happened to you, don’t give up. I went to the DD-WRT forums, found a giant post about the Archer C7 router, and found out that I would probably be more fortunate to flash my router with the latest beta version of DD-WRT rather than what was listed in the site’s router database. … I did it, and … success!
Then I went to the DD-WRT Wireless tab and looked for the Wireless section for my 2.4GHz and 5GHz router radios. I clicked the dropdown and … again nothing. There is no repeater mode to choose from. As it turns out, the Archer C7 uses a Qualcomm Atheros chip, which doesn’t support “simple mode” or regular repeater mode, which you might have chosen otherwise. Sigh.
If you find yourself in this boat, you still have options. This extensive guide will help you set up your old router as a Wi-Fi extender. If you are using a dual band router, this is even easier. Follow the instructions for connecting the old router to the new router in “client mode”, but do not create a virtual interface. Instead, use a different radio on your router in AP mode – devices will connect to it, and your old router will use a different radio to connect back to your existing router.
At this point, you probably want to bite the bullet and just bought a cheap extension cord. I don’t blame you, but it ‘s kind of — fun — and much easier than I thought it would be, that’s for sure.
Let’s summarize
If you don’t want to spend money upgrading your home Wi-Fi network, you should consider using an older router to extend the wireless signal in your home. Every little thing helps. Keep these pointers in mind as you build your new Frankenstein-like networking system:
- If possible, connect your old router to your existing network using an Ethernet cable.
- Remember to turn off the “routing” capabilities of your old router. If your old router has access point mode, that makes it even easier.
- Consider using different SSIDs for old and new networks to have more manual control over the connection of different devices.
- You can also try setting up your router as a wireless repeater, but this will decrease performance.
- If your router does not support the default wireless repeater mode, you can flash it with third-party firmware to unlock this feature.
This story was originally published on 7/30/13 and updated on 6/27/19 to provide updated information.