I have a wireless network in my house, works great. My son has moved to our basement, two floors down from where the my router is, so don't want to run a cable. I picked up an access point, thinking I could attach a switch to it so multiple devices can connect. I want to connect his xBox and PC. Apparently, it's only possible to connect one device directly to the AP, the switch doesn't work.

The access point works fine on the xBox.

Any ideas on a simple solution?

Can you give us a description of the equipment you have?
Also, can you attach a drawing of how you have this hooked up?
Include all the things you'd like to have hooked up even they aren't hooked up.

Label WAN and LAN ports on all your routers and access points.
Label the LAN and wireless ports on all your devices as well.

This will help us help you debug what is going on.

--- bill

Antenna

Works. I have two.

does the AP support DHCP? does it connect to your wiresless by DHCP? if so, you need to configure the two to use different IP networks, they can't both use the same.

if the AP is single IP only, you're out of luck. you need something that supports an IP range. any good router does that these days, so it's probably just a configuration issue.


oh, and btw., take all that wireless stuff of yours and give it the float test!

then, buy some cat6 cable and run real wires. you'll thank me later ...
Andy

Not everybody needs the bandwidth, lower latency, or lower bit error rates of
dedicated wired connections.
For things like Internet access, simple filesharing and printing,
wireless is more than satisfactory.

He already has the wireless equipment and doesn't want to run wires,
so lets help him make it work.

----

Some APs can be configured as bridges and many can be configured
to act like bridges. This may allow hooking up a switch to the AP,
if there isn't one built in, and then run wires from the Xbox and PC to the switch
and wireless from the switch back upstairs to the main router.
The router would then see both the PC and Xbox as wireless clients and
do all the IP address assignments as if both units were wireless.
Even if the AP wants to act like a router, there may still ways to configure it
to work.
(Note: some of this may depend on being able to run in AdHoc mode)

I've actually used wireless routers as a wireless access point with a built
in LAN bridge by disabling the routing functions and not using the WAN port.

I think an equipment list & diagram would be most helpful in getting something to
work as there are often multiple ways to hook things up and configure them.
Also, understanding a bit of what the network will be used for would help
as while certain configurations may work, they may be very sub optimal for
certain applications/uses.


--- bill

You could also use powerline adapters. These are pretty easy, plug one into the wall next to the router, and plug the cable in. The in the basement, plug the other one in, and connect the ethernet to it. These work quite well, and are plenty fast.

I prefer cabling also, but want to avoid running them to the basement out of blatant laziness. I'm thinking the simplest solution maybe to get a wireless adapter for the PC, the sexBox is already working.

Here is the attempted setup.

DGL 4300 -> set DHCP range and leave a block of internal static IPs

DWL G820 -> set static IP on WAN matching an IP on the DGL 4300 static IPs block

DWL G820 -> set DHCP range using a different IP network than the DHCP on DGL 4300

Switch -> plug into DWL G820 using a uplink cable

PC -> plug into switch, set PC to DHCP

xBox -> plug into switch, set xBox to DHCP (do they support DHCP? dunno squat about xBox)



that should work just fine ...
Andy

I used this method and plugged another wireless router down stairs, the two were far enough appart that they didn't interfer with eachother. They both work fine with no modifications other than the powerline adapter is a bit slower!

Thanks for the tips. i attempted Andy's solution, since i already have the hardware. The AP browser would not respond. I tried resetting it a few times and nothing. I may have to buy something after all. I've never tried the electrical outlet network, but my son games online and speed is important.

once you changed the AP to a different network, you need to use that network range to access the AP browser ...

let's say, for example, you set your AP LAN to:

AP LAN IP: 10.0.0.1
AP LAN Submask: 255.255.255.0
AP LAN DHCP Range: 10.0.0.10 - 10.0.0.100

to access the APs webpage, you MUST connect the PC to the LAN side of the AP.
your PC MUST be set to DHCP and you should verify that the settings were successful by pinging 10.0.0.1 which should give you a reply.

then use your browser with the following url:
http://10.0.0.1/

that should bring up the AP web-interface ...
Andy

According to the doc the default IP for the AP is 192.168.0.35, couldn't hit it. Even reset it to the defaults. I'll try the one you posted.

Thanks

maybe DHCP is not on by default on the AP ... set your PC manually to:

IP: 192.168.0.50
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.0.35
DNS is not important at this point ...

make sure your PC is the only thing connected to the AP on the LAN side, make sure the connection LED is lit, change the PC manually (TCP/IPv4) to the settings above, then restart your PC.

once restarted, open a DOS window and try to ping 192.168.0.35 ...

then report back ...
Andy

Andy,
From reading the DWL G820 manual, this device is not really an access point
and is not a router. It is a simplified bridge. It forwards between the LAN port
and the wireless link. There is no DHCP inside the device.
All you can configure is the 802.11 settings.

They also never show a configuration with multiple devices behind the lan connection
like what is being attempted here.

It could be that they have some sort of bridge learning inside the box that limits
the clients on the lan to 1. Not the way, I'd do the code but it is possible.
From a marketing/product sales guy's point of view it would theoretically sell more
devices as each LAN device would need to use one vs sharing one amongst multiple
LAN devices with a switch.

My suggestion at this point would be call the DLink support desk and
ask them if you can use a hub/switch on the LAN port of the G820.
Can't hurt to get their answer to make sure it hasn't been disabled.
(877) 453-4565

--- bill

Tried that several times last night with no response, just timed out. This device is advertised as gaming bridge. I'm beginning to think it's functionality is pretty limited.

Just some other thoughts.
Perhaps the cable between the switch and and the G820 is not correct?

Do you have link indicators on your switch port that light when the G820
is connected?

Does either device ever work when individually hooked up to the G820
via the switch vs directly connected to the G820?

Another thing can be a bridging protocol error between the G820 and the switch.
Does the switch have an "uplink" LAN port?

Some switches/bridges don't like to bridge multiple MAC addresses out to a single
port. If you have an uplink port on your switch, try connecting that port to your
G820.

Which switch do you have? Do you have a vendor/model # for it?

--- bill