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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

I have an older wireless router that I wnat to use as a secondary splitter? Internet comes into my upstairs router goes downstairs and into my older box and is then branched off to different computers. I probably wont activate the wireless part as the upstairs signal is good enough for phones and tablets. Anything I hookup (PS3, music PC) will be wired. Will everything sort itself out or will I be assailed with alphabet soup problems? DHCP, IP, LAFMO, MAC, ECT.


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Flack
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Post by Flack »

Sure. I once explained to a friend that the key to managing DHCP is like thinking about IP addresses like a deck of cards. You can either have the router upstairs dealing cards, or you can have both the one upstairs and the one downstairs handing out cards, but if you do the latter, you can only give each one part of the deck. You can't hand out the same card to two players!

Right now, chances are your router upstairs is handing out internal IP addresses inside the house. Odds are they're 10.0.0.x or 10.0.1.x addresses, which are what most home routers tend to use. You can hook that older wireless router up downstairs and configure it one of two ways -- either turn DHCP off altogether and let that upstairs router handle everything, or split DHCP duties between the two and give each one of them part of your addresses, like have the upstairs router use numbers 1-100 and the downstairs one use 101-250, something like that. The first configuration is the simplest, especially for a home installation. The most common reason for splitting up the addresses would be for network management in a larger setting (think clients in a hospital for example, and how much simpler it would be to know who got their IP address from where based on what their IP address is). The other reason for the latter would be in a network where you are going to exceed 254 clients, which is probably not the case in your house.

The key to all of this is figuring out if your older wireless router can be configured to be a DHCP relay. Some can, some can't, it just kind of depends on age and cost. If it can, then when clients connect to it, it will "relay" their request to get an IP address out to the network where your upstairs router will answer the request.

It's not as complicated as it may sound. Once you get everything wired up I'm sure we can get you up and running.
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Tdarcos
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Post by Tdarcos »

AArdvark wrote:I have an older wireless router that I wnat to use as a secondary splitter... Will everything sort itself out or will I be assailed with alphabet soup problems? DHCP, IP, LAFMO, MAC, ECT.
Quick Summary: Wired networking these days is "plug and play," automatic; wireless networking requires one step.

The nice thing about it is all consumer-grade equipment is fairly standard. If it's hard-wired Ethernet the process is pretty much effortless. The client device broadcasts a DHCP request and the router grants it an IP address and a lease for it. The device caches the IP address and starts using it. It's all automatic, and in most cases it's done as soon as you turn the device on, plug its network cable in, or the first time you try to do anything using networking.

When you do wireless networking, the first time you have to choose what network to connect to and the password if encrypted. After that the device usually caches the network and reconnects to the same one, going through the same automatic DHCP negotiation as wired, all in the background.

The process, except in rare cases, is usually automatic and almost always this stuff just works out of the box.

Now, if you want to enable features like encryption, firewalling and port locking (you can, for example, direct incoming Port 80 traffic from the external internet to a specific machine that you use as a webserver), those you have to do manually, but all routers have their own webserver so you just log on, click the option to change, then fill in the blanks and select check boxes or radio buttons to choose what you want to do.

One note: if you specifically do not want this unit to handle wireless traffic, either enable encryption or use its web browser to tell it to disable wireless. Otherwise devices closer to it will notice a stronger signal and use it instead of the one you want to use for wireless traffic.
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Post by Flack »

I can't compete with the noise, 'Vark. When it comes time to do it, email me.
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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

When I get to the point where everything's plugged in and ready to light-fuse-and-get-away I'll do that. But what I have now CAN work without me having to buy anything else. That's the first building block.

----
One note: if you specifically do not want this unit to handle wireless traffic...
I was going to wrap the antennas in foil and make rabbit ears to go with the old console set. I figure if I ground them they wont work and I'll be the winner.


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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

Hey.....Maybe if I build the router into a REAL pair of rabbit ears!


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Post by Flack »

Call me when you get to this point:

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Post by AArdvark »

Man, the knees are just not working 100% anymore. Putting up basement insulation feels like I just ran a mile.


Ran the ethernet cable to the basement and did all the updates to my television/PC. The Mobo doesn't like the two 2gig ram sticks and the two 1gig ram sticks. It wont boot most of the time. I settled for 4gigs of ram and called it good. Now it just works. What would I do with all that ram anyway?


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Flack
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Post by Flack »

There's a (albeit small) chance that the RAM might work if you swap the order around. Try putting the 1 giggers in slot 0, unless they already are, and then swap them. Some mobos will freak out if you have faster RAM in slot 0 and slower RAM in slot 1. Worth a shot.

I found a shoebox full of old RAM out in my garage the other day. Perfect, should I need a project that requires a bunch of 1, 4, or 8 meg SIMMs. Yeah, meg.
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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

I tried all the ways I could think of and then I read the manual and tried a couple more. I think the 1gig sticks are older than the new 2gig sticks and the mobo doan lak dat. It's win7 X64 so 4gigs will work fine. I'm not playing any high end games on the thing so I'm happy with it just working.

I hooked the flatscreen remote sensor into the original television sensor window and wired the manual on/off switch into the original on/off button on the television. I was going to wire up the volume control buttons as well but I'll never use them. All sound will go out to the stereo amp.
There's a flip down lid that used to cover the five adjustments (sharp/ color/ tint/ horiz and vert) knobs. That's where the external USB ports are going to be. I love these big old 80s circuit boards with the wide traces. so much easier to modify than the micro new boards of today.

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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

Update! All the exterior walls are up and painted. Getting real good at that drywall mud thing. Now to to the interior walls. Then I can put down some indoor/outdoor carpeting and hang a ceiling. Maybe the ceiling first? I dunno.


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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

the old...Image

And the new..

Image

Image


Wonder if I should decorate it like the set from Wayne's World?
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Image

Now for a ceiling... and a floor
Image[/img]

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Post by bruce »

You murdered a home Tiki Bar for a 70s TV and a futon??

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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

That tv is my music PC and the futon was fifty bucks on Craigslist. The tiki bar was obsolete. What good is having a bar without a bartender to serve you tasty drinks? Was probably nice in 1972 though. This is the future home of AArdvark studios. There's no room for a bar in a music studio.


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Jizaboz
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Post by Jizaboz »

Tiki bar looked cool (and I'd just serve myself drinks haha) but probably had shit living in it if it was build in 1972.

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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

I just made an executive decision. I'm putting a dedicated media server PC in the basement and running cat5 to my TV and PS3 from the second router. This wireless streaming is laggy and painful. I bought an external HDD to hook straight up to the TV but they don't see each other.

I have only a hazy idea about how all this works. I'm sure once I connect all the blue and grey wires everything will run fine. There's streaming software that needs to be downloaded and larger holes to be cut into the floor. How hard can it be?

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Flack
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Post by Flack »

You cut the holes and I will talk you through the rest.
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Post by Jizaboz »

Cat5 still makes since in some situations. And even though my gaming computer sits right next to my modem and router, it's wired to the router. Ping is everything when there are people shooting at you!

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Flack
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Post by Flack »

Hard drives are almost large and inexpensive enough that it will make sense in the very near future to just rip DVDs to ISO and stream them that way instead of painstakingly ripping and compressing every one to some lossy format like mp4. I've experimented with this, but my wireless signal isn't fast enough to stream the movies between floors.

My next house will have a network drop in every room. It'll also be one story.
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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

Quick update. Basement is on hold until the fall. Just too many out of doors things that I need to work on. I got the stereo hooked up so I can play my vinyl again, though. Who would have thunk that that would be a priority in 2016.
There's this huge pile of brush, tree limbs and old treehouse parts out back that needs to be sorted out, burned and hauled to the curb, but not in that order. Had to buy me a dumper cart for the riding lawn tractor so I can haul stuff around. I feel like Old McDonald without the farm. Dunno why, just the idea of me riding around on a lawn tractor still gives me a feeling of dorkiness, even after a year. Now I'm pulling a trailer around as well. It works, that's all I can say. maybe if I put a hood scoop on the John Deere or something...


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