Devices having trouble connecting to 2nd router's wifi

[rakosnik]

I have two routers a D-Link DIR-601 and a Netgear WGT624 v2. The D-Link is the primary with the connection from the cable modem plugged into the D-Link's WAN port. Then I have one of the LAN ports on the D-Link plugged into one of the LAN ports on the Netgear. DHCP is disabled on the Netgear and currently wifi is also turned off on the Netgear.

All of the devices connected to the LAN ports seem to be working fine and if I'm understanding everything correctly they are getting their IP addresses assigned to them by the D-Link since DHCP is disabled in the Netgear.

However, I would like to turn on the wifi on the Netgear and have two separate wifi signals. The D-Link would broadcast in only 802.11n and the Netgear would only broadcast in 802.11g. When I've done this so far I haven't been able to get it to work.

I intentionally changed the SSID of the D-Link to nothing any of my devices had used before, with WPA enabled and I used a different channel. On the Netgear I used the old SSID and WPA password. When devices try to connect to it something goes wrong. It is as if they are either unable to authenticate the WPA password or they aren't getting an IP address assigned to them.

Why aren't my devices able to connect to the wireless signal from the 2nd router (Netgear)?

 

[stevech]

That second router should be configured as an Access Point (re-purposed).
There's a tutorial on the main pages here.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...w-to-add-an-access-point-to-a-wireless-router

Besides changing SSID, I'd put the two on channels separated by 3 numbers, say, 1 and 6. This helps speed on the 11n one.

 

[rakosnik]

I'd put the two on channels separated by 3 numbers, say, 1 and 6. This helps speed on the 11n one.

Good point. I forgot to mention that in my initial post. I'm using channel 1 for my primary router and channel 6 for my access point. Channel 11 is used by some of my neighbors.

That second router should be configured as an Access Point (re-purposed).
There's a tutorial on the main pages here.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...w-to-add-an-access-point-to-a-wireless-router

I already did this. I changed my AP's IP address, turned off DHCP, etc. As a matter of fact I think I read the link above and the tutorial mentioned at the beginning of the link to initially setup my AP. As I said in my initial post the wired connections seem to be working fine. Its just the wireless ones.

I want to try and use just 802.11n on my primary router to force N capable devices to connect at the faster speed and 802.11g on my AP to give my non-N devices a wireless AP to connect to.

Would static IP addresses solve this problem?

Is there any problem if I use a different SSID for the AP than the router, but I still use the same WPA passphrase?

 

[stevech]

static IP - no affect on WiFi.

Different SSID on AP than router: good, common practice.

Same WPA password: OK. Make sure all your clients support that form of WPA.