Apartment setup - several difficulities

[Sonikk]

Hey there!

I have recently moved to start studying and going from a all-wired setup to this challenging apartment is a bit of a nightmare. The apartment is located on the second floor, while the internet connection and router provided (which i can't change the location of) is located in the basement. A new router for the basement is on the way, but I don't know the brand yet so don't think about that.
The basement, including the roof is made out of concrete, while all walls and ceilings on both the first and second floor is covered in plaster, which as far as I know further reduces wireless range and signal quality.
Since I rent the place, I would prefer not having to ask drilling through any walls.
To further add to the difficulties, the house has four separate electrical wire systems, one for each floor. I do have one outlet connected to my system in the basement, but that outlet is also connected to the hot water tank(don't know if that's the word you use in English), which i guess does produce some electrical noise. Anyways, I got a feeling a powerline/HomePlug solution wouldn't be close to an acceptable solution for 3 student and all the different clients.

Stability would be the highest priority for the setup, while a WLAN AP with the opportunity to run wires from there to various multimedia-devices would be ideal. I also need a wireless card for my desktop, so suggestions for one that would suit the setup are also appreciated.

Complicated, I know, but any suggestions, ideas and thoughts are welcome.

 

[GregN]

Outside, Window to Window at all possible? Coax or Twisted Pair

 

[Sonikk]

I was just thinking about that, but i will have to take a closer look tomorrow to check how the internet cable actually gets into the basement. The thing is that i told the guy I rent the apartment from that i weren't too happy about the internet that was included, so he ordered 20 times faster connection and a by him called "long-range router", but it doesn't arrive for some weeks so I can't have a look at it yet.

Don't think coax (through MoCA?) is available here in Norway, there is no coax system in the house currently, and haven't read too much about it.

As you probably guessed, he isn't a tech guy, so i can probably get into the router with 192.168.0.1 and standard username/pw to get the DHCP range range, plug a wire into the LAN port and run it outside and in a window on my room, set up a AP there and HomePlug to the living room for wired connection to the xbox and other devices there.

Don't know if i got that AP setup right, but there is great step-by-steps on here so that will be alright. So this is probably the way to do it then, if i can run a TP outside from the basement?

Thanks for the quick reply by they way, guess the simple solution is the best in some cases!

 

[GregN]

I was just thinking about that, but i will have to take a closer look tomorrow to check how the internet cable actually gets into the basement. The thing is that i told the guy I rent the apartment from that i weren't too happy about the internet that was included, so he ordered 20 times faster connection and a by him called "long-range router", but it doesn't arrive for some weeks so I can't have a look at it yet.

Older building or new building? Urban? I seem to remember most of the modern apartment blocks are poured concrete in Oslo (nice town, not cheap....), poured is bad for wireless tho

Don't think coax (through MoCA?) is available here in Norway, there is no coax system in the house currently, and haven't read too much about it.

Yep, MoCA with Coax.

Insulated Cat5e/6 can go 200+ meters and obviously would be easier and most likely cheaper.

As you probably guessed, he isn't a tech guy, so i can probably get into the router with 192.168.0.1 and standard username/pw to get the DHCP range range, plug a wire into the LAN port and run it outside and in a window on my room, set up a AP there and HomePlug to the living room for wired connection to the xbox and other devices there.



Don't know if i got that AP setup right, but there is great step-by-steps on here so that will be alright. So this is probably the way to do it then, if i can run a TP outside from the basement?

Workable. The set-up is straight forward that way. Probably use your old router as the AP. "Beat it to fit, paint it to color."

Folks here are more than willing to help. Let us know what router, and the way you end up jumping.

 

[stevech]

Anyways, I got a feeling a powerline/HomePlug solution wouldn't be close to an acceptable solution for 3 student and all the different clients.

Complicated, I know, but any suggestions, ideas and thoughts are welcome.

Give HomePlug AV 200Mbps a try. Experiment with different wall outlet pairings to find the best/fastest data rate.

Failing that, perhaps there's in-wall TV coax in the basement and upstairs to permit use of MoCA?

 

[Sonikk]

Alright, got my stuff now.
This is the setup I run now:

What was there previously:

Random internet modem (old and will be replaced within 4-6 weeks)
wired into a DIR-615 (old, but can't do much about it since it belongs to the houseowner)

New:

30m CAT5E from the basement outdoors to the second floor
TP-LINK TL-WR1043N with disabled DHCP
Wired to my desktop, TP-Link HomePlug to Xbox, wireless to 2 windows laptops, 2 macs, 2 iPhones, 1 iPad and 1 Android phone(not sure if all has been connected yet, so don't think too much about how many devices there is)

The wireless that the TP-LINK is hosting got different SSID etc compared to the D-LINK in the basement. The reasoning i have behind this is to force my devices to connect to the TP-LINK and make them not do an effort to connect to the D-LINK. Can I do it like this when i use this setup?

This is the DHCP setup on the DIR-615

As you can see, the reserved IPs are assigned outside of the DHCP range. I don't know if this is the prefered way to do it, but it works for my laptop and desktop. I have tried both inside and outside of the DHCP range to get the iPad and Android working.

The issue is that some devices are getting completly wront DHCP info.
For example, my iPad show these settings:

IP Address: 169.254.245.195
Subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
Router and DNS shows up as blank. Same info even when i renew the lease.
I got the same issue with my android phone, even though, as you can see, i have reserved an IP both for the iPad and phone. Double-checked the MAC addresses.
Before i assigned a reserved IP for my desktop, it couldn't access the internet and windows7 gave me an error that said that there were multiple devices on the network with the same IP.
I even put the same exact reservations into the TP-LINK DHCP config, even though i guess that doesn't matter at all as it doesn't use that info when the DHCP isn't enabled.

I really do hope someone can share their knowledge so that I can solve this issue and hopefully learn something while at it, especially since I may have to do it all over again as the homeowner, as explained earlier, has promised a new connection and router.

Thanks in advance

 

[thiggins]

Reserved IPs need to be assigned inside the DHCP server range. That's how the DHCP server "reserves" them.

The 169 series address is a link local, which means that the devices aren't communicating with the DHCP server.

 

[Sonikk]

Alright, changed them to go downwards from 199 now, instead of up from 201. That pretty much made no difference as both my laptop (wireless) and desktop (wired) were both working with IPs assigned outside the range, but anyways, that's not the problem.

The iPad is still getting the 169 address, while the android is stuck trying to get the IP. I guess you are right that they cannot communicate with the DHCP, which to me is strange since both a mac without a reserved IP and a laptop with a reserved IP, both wireless, can get their appropriate IPs while connected to my "AP wireless network" if you can call it that.

I don't know if you read the part about the different SSID compared to the router in the basement, but i suspect it may have something to do with it. Is there a way to make them connect to the DHCP while still forcing the devices to connect to the AP?

I'm not network expert, but I feel that it's better to make a device connect to the closest and best router/AP, instead of it wasting time and maybe stability to try to find the best one, maybe even swiching between the two.

Thanks for the very quick reply!

 

[thiggins]

SSID affects only the association of a wireless client with an AP. Once it's associated, as long as the AP has a proper network connection, it should pass traffic properly.

You can check the DHCP reservation by associating the problem wireless clients to the main router's SSID. If that works, the problem is the way the TP-Link is set up. Are you connecting it to the network via a LAN port, not WAN? There should also be a static IP assigned to it in the DIR-615's subnet so that you can control it.

 

[Sonikk]

The TP-LINK is connected to the DIR-615 from LAN to LAN port, not using the WAN on the TP-LINK. When you say that i should assign a static ip to the TP-LINK, would that be by setting it's ip to say 192.168.0.2 in the TP-LINKs config? If so, that's what I have done, but i haven't done anything to set a IP for the TP-LINK in the DIRs config.

I'm at school at the moment so can't do any testing for a couple more hours, but I tried connecting them directly to the DIR-615 WLAN last night and i still experienced the same issue. However, I did swap between the networks pretty rapidly and I don't know how phones and iPads handle that. I did press the "renew lease" button on the iPad several times though, and still got the same IP.

Could it simply be that the DHCP in the DIR-615 is getting overrun? After all, it was the only router for 3 apartments and 8-9 people with all the devices that includes.

An unrelated issue, I sometimes experience having connection to the router while getting an error that says "no internet connection". This happens both when connected to the old router and the new one.

 

[thiggins]

The TP-LINK is connected to the DIR-615 from LAN to LAN port, not using the WAN on the TP-LINK. When you say that i should assign a static ip to the TP-LINK, would that be by setting it's ip to say 192.168.0.2 in the TP-LINKs config? If so, that's what I have done, but i haven't done anything to set a IP for the TP-LINK in the DIRs config.

That is correct, assuming the DIR-615 uses 192.168.0.X. Make sure you set the TP-Link to an IP outside the DIR-615's DHCP server range or reserve an IP for it.

I'm at school at the moment so can't do any testing for a couple more hours, but I tried connecting them directly to the DIR-615 WLAN last night and i still experienced the same issue. However, I did swap between the networks pretty rapidly and I don't know how phones and iPads handle that. I did press the "renew lease" button on the iPad several times though, and still got the same IP.

Use the "forget network" iPad function to be sure the old settings are cleared.

Could it simply be that the DHCP in the DIR-615 is getting overrun? After all, it was the only router for 3 apartments and 8-9 people with all the devices that includes.

You can find this out by power cycling the router, shutting off all clients except the ones you are having problems with and then associating them. If that works, slowly add clients back and see if/when you get a failure.
It's more likely you have a wireless client limit (possibly 16) than a DHCP server limit.

An unrelated issue, I sometimes experience having connection to the router while getting an error that says "no internet connection". This happens both when connected to the old router and the new one.

Let's solve the main problem first.

 

[Sonikk]

The TP-LINK is set up correctly then, your assumption is correct and it's located outside the DHCP range.

Also solved the iPad and Android issue today. First i powercycled the router, then i used the "forget network" feature on both the iPad and Android. Then i connected the iPad to the D-Link network, still resulting in the 169-IP. Then i logged into the router config and turned off IP reservation for both the iPad and android. Then i forgot the network again, turned the iPad off, then on again and connected it to the same network. Got a proper IP straight away, so I then changed to the TP-LINK network to check if it worked there too, which it did. I then connected the android to the TP-LINK network straight away, which also worked perfectly.

For educational purposes, can anyone explain to me why it appears these "phone"-devices doesn't respond well to reserved IPs, while other wireless devices do? The DHCP range i used was 100-199 and the range i reserved IPs in was 194-199, where the iPad had 197 and the andoid 196.

Anyways, thanks alot for all the useful replies! I solved my issue and learned a thing or two along the way.

 

[thiggins]

I don't think it was a "phone" issue. For "educational purposes" now that you have it working, try reserving the IPs that your previously-problem devices have now leased and see if it breaks.