What am I doing wrong? Router setup

[audi321]

Hi all. I have an outbuilding which I would like to have wifi in.

I have a pair of homeplugs which work perfectly (in that building), but I thought I could just plug the homeplug into an old Zyxel router and that would create a wifi hotspot in the outbuilding.........turns out its not as simple as I thought.

I've been through every setting looking for 'Access point' or 'Bridge' but there's nothing.

Anyone have any ideas what I'm doing wrong? The router has 4 yellow ports on the back, and 1 blue one (labelled WAN). Am I right in thinking that any of the yellow ports will do?

Thanks for any advice.

[Bujinkhal]

I'm not sure what a homeplug is, if you mean a powerline adapter https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/powerline/ then they for starters need to be on the same electrical loop to connect to each other. So if you're hoping to put one in your house then another in an outbuilding, that's the first thing to check.

[andyb28]

They only work if the ring main is connected. Perhaps this is on a separate circuit?

There are a couple of other ways you could do this. Do you need an ethernet connection, or would wifi be enough?

[Bujinkhal]

Do you have a setting that says gateway? Set that to the IP address of the router that's providing the internet connection. I assume you can connect devices to the zyxel router but they just can't get out on to the internet?

[audi321]

Sorry guys I mean power line adapters.

They work perfectly and I have wired internet in the outbuilding. What I’m trying to do is have wifi in the outbuilding by connecting it to a router.

Thought that was possible?

[audi321]

Bujinkhal said:

Do you have a setting that says gateway? Set that to the IP address of the router that's providing the internet connection. I assume you can connect devices to the zyxel router but they just can't get out on to the internet?

Correct, when connected to the router I get no internet but I can get into the router settings with the 192.168.1.1

[Bujinkhal]

Ok so so we've basically got House router --- Powerline adapter ---- powerline adapter--- outbuilding router.

You need to make sure that both routers are on the same IP range, so if the house router is 192.168.0.1 and zyxel is 192.168.1.1 you're not going to get anywhere.

Make sure you're manually setting the IP of the Zyxel router to be 192.168.0.254 (254 is arbitrary) (or whatever your house router is .1 of. You need to get those 2 speaking to each other before any device has a chance.

[audi321]

Bujinkhal said:

Ok so so we've basically got House router --- Powerline adapter ---- powerline adapter--- outbuilding router.

You need to make sure that both routers are on the same IP range, so if the house router is 192.168.0.1 and zyxel is 192.168.1.1 you're not going to get anywhere.

Make sure you're manually setting the IP of the Zyxel router to be 192.168.0.254 (254 is arbitrary) (or whatever your house router is .1 of. You need to get those 2 speaking to each other before any device has a chance.

Yes, both are on 192.168.1.1 (or at least that's how I access both the router settings).

They're actually both identical routers Zxyel XMG3927-B50A

[Bujinkhal]

So you need to change the last number ie.1 you can't have both using the same IP.

if you've got 192.168.1.1 for your house router, try setting the manual ip of the outbuilding router to 192.168.1.254 and set the gateway setting to 192.168.1.1.

[Bujinkhal]

If once you've done that, you can access the house router's GUI by using 192.168.1.1 whilst connected to the outbuilding router, that's the first major hurdle out the way.

[Bujinkhal]

There's also a chance your router is clever enough to figure it all out by itself. Have you tried plugging the powerline ethernet into the WAN port?

[audi321]

Yes I tried the blue WAN port and also one of the yellow LAN ports.....niether worked. Which one is correct?

Just about to change the IP address of the outbuilding router to 192.168.1.255, I'll advise what that does.

[Bujinkhal]

Not 255 254 is the upper limit.

WAN vs Ethernet, long story short, it depends.

PS not a network engineer, I'll do my best to help you but my knowledge is limited.

[GlenMH]

audi321 said:

Yes I tried the blue WAN port and also one of the yellow LAN ports.....niether worked. Which one is correct?

Just about to change the IP address of the outbuilding router to 192.168.1.255, I'll advise what that does.

If that works, ISTR then you should turn off NAT and firewall on the outhouse router.

[cpszx]

using the wan port if ethernet should have worked, unless it is set for authentication, in which case it just wants to be set as a simple port.

if using the yellow lan port instead, then you will need to turn dhcp off on the zyxel router so that the other router is the authority, and puts you on the right ip range.

either way, there is a small amount of setup change needed on the zyxel.

if using the yellow port, and the standard zyxel ip range is different to the other router, then you need to set a new manual ip for it on the other range, or set a static on your laptop when you want to manage the zyxel in the future after you join the networks and turn dhcp off

[audi321]

Thanks ever so much guys, changing the IP address on the outbuilding router to 192.168.1.254 worked a treat and it instantly came on. Wifi in outbuilding now sorted!

The whole problem was caused by my Android TV no longer supporting Youtube and no RJ45 ports anymore on Apple TVs! Hence the need for wifi.

Thanks again all.

[Bujinkhal]

Great stuff, glad you got it sorted.

[audi321]

Bujinkhal said:

Great stuff, glad you got it sorted.

Thanks again for your detailed help.

[GuyW]

audi321 said:

no RJ45 ports anymore on Apple TVs! Hence the need for wifi.

Still an option, however ethernet is no longer on all Apple TVs. You need to get the 128GB model.

[audi321]

GuyW said:

audi321 said:

no RJ45 ports anymore on Apple TVs! Hence the need for wifi.

Still an option, however ethernet is no longer on all Apple TVs. You need to get the 128GB model.

Thanks for the info, I didn't know that and useful that they still do them. Typical I have the only Apple TV ever made without a RJ45 port grrrrrr

Edited by audi321 on Wednesday 19th June 13:45