Adding access point to RT-AC66U

[hobolurkin]

Hi everyone! Long time reader, first time poster. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you might offer.

I'm setting up an old router (Belkin Connect N150 F7D5301 V3, latest stock FW) to act as an access point to provide connectivity to my workshop, which gets minimal (read: unusable) signal at the moment. The main router is an ASUS RT-AC66U w/ latest stock FW. The problem I am encountering is that all wireless connections to the AP are not getting an IP address assigned [Edit: but wired connections do get an IP address assigned from RT-AC66u].

Physically, the modem is cabled to the WAN port on the RT-AC66U. From the main router's LAN port it is cabled to a LAN port on the F7D5301.

The main router is configured:

IP address 192.168.1.1
dhcp server active with a range of .100 to .200
set 2.4GHz SSID to "example ssid"
set 5 GHz to "example ssid 5ghz"
both with password "samplepass1"
both WPA2-Personal and AES.

The access point is configured:

auto-configured for Access Point (disables DHCP and firewall)
set ip to 192.168.1.2
gateway & DNS to 192.168.1.1
set SSID to "example ssid ap"
password "samplepass2"
WPA/WPA2 using TKIP/AES

Whether or not I manually add the AP to the assigned address list in main router DHCP page, it always shows as "Static" in the connected clients list and doesn't solve the problem

If I connect a notebook directly to AP's LAN port, it is assigned an IP address and the gateway/dns are auto-configured. This works great! The moment I unplug that cable and turn on wireless, it will just not get an IP address. This is the same behaviour for any wireless device.

The only workaround I have found is to manually assign IP addresses outside of the DHCP range for each device on the AP's wireless, which gets the network connectivity. Oddly, any devices working this way don;t appear on the main router's client list.

Manually assigning IP addresses to the wireless adaptor is causing problems when I switch to a different network, as Windows 8.1 seems to be configuring the adaptor itself and not the network entry.

For ease of use, I would love to offer guests Wifi without having to manually configure all their devices. Any tips?

Thanks for your time,
Bart

 

[hobolurkin]

*any* tips are appreciated! Really drawing a blank on what to try next. Exhaustive searches haven't turned up anything that I can use or that work.

Thanks!

 

[stevech]

Disable Plug-n-play in the access point. Configure it's LAN IP to be in the same subnet as the router is providing, e.g.,
DHCP is, say, 192.168.1.100-200 so you can reserve 192.168.1.250 for the access point.
Or you can use a DHCP Reservation for the router using its MAC address.

The admin access to the router and access point (AP) is normally disabled on the WiFi side for security reasons. Must admin via wired connection to LAN.

How does the AP connect to the router? Ethernet cable? IP over power lines? MoCA?
An AP is not a "repeater" as in WiFi range extender.

Guest normally uses a separate guest SSID and different WPA key.

 

[Easy Limits]

You might find this helpful. I know I did.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basi...onvert-a-wireless-router-into-an-access-point