two routers boost signal?

I just got fios installed in my house. It comes with the wireless router...which is setup downstairs on the family pc. All my stuff...xbox, laptop, pc, psp, ps3 are all up stairs where the signal is weak. I have the old wireless router still. Can I set that up somehow so that I can get a better signal upstairs with all of my stuff?

 

You could but that would be a networking nightmare of a sort. First, you would have to find a suitable spot in between both your devices and the Router downstairs. You would have to manually set the Router IP's to DIFFERENT SUBNETS!!!! This causes problems if you are not network savvy. Your router downstairs would only talk to the "mid" router and your devices would talk to the "mid router" You have to consider Frequencies too. It would not be wise to put both routers on the same channel for there would be interference. Now you have 2 (two) ssid's being broadcast out of you home also which doubles your chance for freeloaders and hackers. My advice is forget all that and look into a higher gain antenna, ie... dB (Decible) Google high gain WIFI antennas. You could also make one if your good with tinkering in such issues. Making higher gain antennas or optimizing your existing antenna by making it directional is actually easy and fun. Give it a shot.

 

if i connected an ethernet cord from one router to the other, this still wouldn't help?

 

if you ran a cable from your router downstairs to the one upstairs, it would work just fine. you would just be using the switch ports, not the one thats says WAN. turn dhcp off on the router upstairs. if you can change the frequencies, put one of them on 1 and the other on 6. you dont have to worry about subnetting.

 

i will try that

 

Im afraid this will not work.
He wanted to extend his wireless signal, by using the old router as a switch then he would have to connect all his devices "xbox, laptop, pc, psp, ps3" into that switch thus defeating the purpose of a wireless router.
Here is a scenario that would work.
He connects his old routers WAN port to his new routers switch ports. His old router will pull a private IP from his new router. He then ensures that his old router has a different sub net, ie.. 192.168.1.X or 192.168.0.X. Keep his old router on DHCP and point all his devices to link up with the old router that is upstairs and closer. This does work for I have done it, it has the potential for routing issues though.

 

i just ran the cable and it worked fine.

The downstairs router is connected with an ethernet cable to the downstairs pc.
The upstairs router is connected to the downstairs router with a cable too.
My pc and xbox upstairs is connected to the upstairs router with a cable.
My psp, ps3 and laptop are connected to either router anywhere in the house. All speed tests have improved and they are all above 15Mb down 1.5mb up.

I guess it DID work.

 

I think you are confused. The psp,ps2 ect ARE connected to a router somewhere in the grand scheme of things, my guess is the wireless router upstairs. The wireless router upstairs is passing all routes, requests and connectivity through the cable that you connected. I would bet a $1 you used the Wan port on the upstairs router to connect to the router downstairs...yes?
Bottom line, if there is NOT a cable coming out of the WAN port on the upstairs router, then no wireless devices are being extended, period. If you are just using the switch ports on the upstairs router then what ever wireless connectivity you have in that house is using the downstairs router. Without the WAN port in use, that upstairs router has no idea nor a path to router any wireless activity.

 

May be this can Help.

Extending Distance - http://www.ezlan.net/Distance.html

Wireless Router as an AP - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

Wireless Modes - http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Modes.html

Wireless Bridging - http://www.ezlan.net/bridging.html

Hi Gain Antenna - http://www.ezlan.net/antennae.html

 

This page allows you to configure wireless repeater feature (also known as Wireless Distribution System) for your wireless network. Click "Apply" to configure the wireless repeater options.

The above is from my router (BT Voyager 2100), it has built in repeater functionality, perhaps your old router does to?

 

Who cares?

The original poster accomplished what he needed, and thats all that matters at this point. To post further tech advice when the case is closed is silly...