R7000 used as router and AP

[jonsamson]

I have two R7000 routers, one set up as the main router and the other set up as an AP. All is working well. Both are set up with same wifi name and password but different ones for the 2.4ghz and 5ghz as not all devices can connect to the 5ghz.

It's set up in a large home as we had a lot of dead spots. This seems to have done the trick.

Since I'm not an advanced techie - but can do things pretty well on my own - I wonder what I could do to the R7000 configuations to jiggle it and make it even more faster and dependable. Right now its set to the default except for the SSiD, wireless password and router password which have been changed.

Thanks and appreciate the feedback.

Jonathan

 

[bobsilver]

The areas that you can work to improve performance will be in antenna
placement. Also you should be looking at signal strength and noise. To do this you will need a test software like inSSIDer or Netspot depending on your platform.

What you want to see is if there are any other nets using your channels. You want to set channels so that you have the clearest range. This is most important on the 2.4 ghz band since it is more crowded and has less room then the 5ghz band. IN 2.4 you dont want the same channels on both devices. You should choose 1,6 or 11. Again different on each device.

Placement is key You dont want the devices to overlap much. So if you sit between the two what does signal strength look like? How much on each. And where in your home does your wireless device switch from one to the other. If this is occurring in a frequent area where you reside this will cause issue as your wireless device could be switching while you are using it. Not good.

Net is it is a trial and error with some data from the test software. Also you can use Lan Speed Test to determine throughput.

Bob Silver
NETGEAR Networking Assistant

 

[OP06D]

Hi. I am about to purchase this device for use only as a router. I was wondering if there is a way in the firmware to totally disable the wireless function. It is also my belief that there is no way to disable WPS with the wireless function activated. Since I don't want/need the wireless, disabling it would be the way to go. If wireless cannot be disabled and WPS can not be disabled this would be a deal breaker for me.

 

[fistv]

Hi. I am about to purchase this device for use only as a router. I was wondering if there is a way in the firmware to totally disable the wireless function. It is also my belief that there is no way to disable WPS with the wireless function activated. Since I don't want/need the wireless, disabling it would be the way to go. If wireless cannot be disabled and WPS can not be disabled this would be a deal breaker for me.

Why not just buy a real router with no wireless at all in it. One like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=wired_router-_-0XP-000A-00001-_-Product
or
http://routerboard.com/

 

[OP06D]

Why not just buy a real router with no wireless at all in it. One like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=wired_router-_-0XP-000A-00001-_-Product
or
http://routerboard.com/

Thanks, but I am looking for a device with a WAN to LAN speed in the 900 Mbps area. Price is really not a concern. The Cisco RV320 looks interesting, however from my experience Cisco small business devices continue to give grey hairs and firmware updates are beyond slow.

 

[RogerSC]

Thanks, but I am looking for a device with a WAN to LAN speed in the 900 Mbps area. Price is really not a concern. The Cisco RV320 looks interesting, however from my experience Cisco small business devices continue to give grey hairs and firmware updates are beyond slow.

Yes, if that's what you want to do. You can just leave both wireless radios disabled in the Advanced Setup Wireless Settings screen. You can also disable the WPS PIN in that same screen, so that's something to consider if you think that you might want to use the wireless at some point.

I do agree, though, with looking around a bit more to find a router that isn't a wireless-1900AC model for this, you might save a ton of money. You can use the router search functionality on this web site to search for routers with particular parameters, I don't have one to recommend at the moment. Just give some thought to what you really need, and look for that. I did have a great experience with the Asus RT-N66U, but I don't think that it's quite up there in the 900Mbps area. Very solid hardware, though.

On the other hand, I've had the R7000 for several months now, and it has served me very well. Both the routing and wireless functionality has worked really well for me. So I can recommend it as a piece of hardware, but again, you're paying a premium for the wireless-1900AC functionality that you won't be using.

Your call, of course *smile*. I can see both sides on this one.

 

[namurt]

Apologies to the OP for hijacking your thread a bit.

I'm quite literally about to head to Best Buy to pick up two R7000's. I intend to do as the OP has done and use one as my main router and the second as an AP.

I have two quick questions.

1.) Do I need a switch between them? I would run ethernet from the router to the switch, and then from the switch to the AP and to my desktop PC. Or can I just run ethernet from the router to the AP and then from the AP to my desktop PC, using the built-in switch on the AP?

2.) I'm going to run both bands on the router and the AP with separate SSIDs for all bands. What's the best option as far as channel width for each band? The router is going in the basement and the AP will be on the second floor, and this is in a three story home.

 

[Trip]

@jon - Following bob's suggestions, you should be on the right track to maxing out what your 2 R7000s can do.

@OP06D - As long as you're not adding in too many NAT/firewall rules or other types of packet processing, the ERL or any GigE routerboards should route WAN-to-LAN at near wire speeds. For the less technically-savvy, perhaps a Peplink Balance One? You could still go with a consumer/small-biz model, and I'm sure when it works it would work well, but the real question would be: could it perform consistently over time under whatever load you require and at high speed, without needing constant tending-to/rebooting/debugging, etc... and the reviews appear to be mixed on a good majority of that stuff. Your mileage may vary.

@namurt - 1.) Since both units have built-in 4-port switches, you shouldn't need a switch between the two (unless you have more devices to wire in at either endpoint than you have ports available). What you want to do is turn off DHCP and all firewalling/filtering on the R7000 which you will use as your AP, then assign that same R7000 a static IP on the same subnet as the router R7000, then wire the AP R7000 to the router R7000 from one lan port to another. For your wired PC, if you can wire directly to the R7000 being used as the router, that may give you slightly lower latency, otherwise wiring in to the AP should also work. 2.) For the 2.4Ghz band, there are only 3 total channels that don't overlap at all (1, 6, and 11). For 5Ghz, I believe in the USA there are 9 total channels usable without too much difficulty. So as long as you run your same-frequency broadcasts on 2 separate channels, you should be good. For a bit more education, here's a pretty good small article.

Hope those thoughts help!

 

[namurt]

@namurt - 1.) Since both units have built-in 4-port switches, you shouldn't need a switch between the two (unless you have more devices to wire in at either endpoint than you have ports available). What you want to do is turn off DHCP and all firewalling/filtering on the R7000 which you will use as your AP, then assign that same R7000 a static IP on the same subnet as the router R7000, then wire the AP R7000 to the router R7000 from one lan port to another. For your wired PC, if you can wire directly to the R7000 being used as the router, that may give you slightly lower latency, otherwise wiring in to the AP should also work. 2.) For the 2.4Ghz band, there are only 3 total channels that don't overlap at all (1, 6, and 11). For 5Ghz, I believe in the USA there are 9 total channels usable without too much difficulty. So as long as you run your same-frequency broadcasts on 2 separate channels, you should be good. For a bit more education, here's a pretty good small article.

I really appreciate the informative post!

I am very limited in terms of wired cat5e runs. I rent an old townhouse and am not able to run any more than what I already have, which is a single cat5e run from my basement to the second floor. So I'm going to have to wire my desktop PC into the AP. You mentioned latency. I'm not so worried about that because I hardly game. Will throughput be affected at all?

And a follow-up question regarding the SSID channels. I do understand the importance of not overlapping channels, but what my original question was getting as is whether to use 20/40MHz width for the 2.4GHz band and whether to use 40/80MHz width for the 5GHz band?

 

[Trip]

Hi namurt,

Glad to be of help.

I probably shouldn't have even brought up latency, as with any properly functioning unmanaged switch, it should be practically non-existant. So your good either way.

On the frequency choices, obvious 40/80 will give you more potential bandwidth, but in my experience, sometimes at the cost of slightly decreased range and/or greater sensitivity to obstructions/other wifi broadcasts. It's usually a trial-and-error type of approach that I take. On 2.4, I tend to either do mixed(auto) or go with 20 if I have to pick, only because it seems to agree with more types and generations of devices. On 5Ghz, I'd say 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, as both channels seem to behave equally well or poorly. Your mileage may vary, though. Do report back to us what's worked best for you, though.

 

[RogerSC]

Just one thing, if you go to "Advanced Setup" on the R7000 admin web GUI, and to "Wireless AP", you'll find a very simple setup there for using the R7000 as a wireless AP. And you can use the WAN port on the R7000 AP to connect to your main router, so you don't lose the use of a LAN port on your AP.

I'd recommend doing that and using the built-in R7000 wireless AP setup instead of manually doing AP setup and losing a LAN port on the AP in the process.

 

[OP06D]

@jon - Following bob's suggestions, you should be on the right track to maxing out what your 2 R7000s can do.

@OP06D - As long as you're not adding in too many NAT/firewall rules or other types of packet processing, the ERL or any GigE routerboards should route WAN-to-LAN at near wire speeds. For the less technically-savvy, perhaps a Peplink Balance One? You could still go with a consumer/small-biz model, and I'm sure when it works it would work well, but the real question would be: could it perform consistently over time under whatever load you require and at high speed, without needing constant tending-to/rebooting/debugging, etc... and the reviews appear to be mixed on a good majority of that stuff. Your mileage may vary.

@namurt - 1.) Since both units have built-in 4-port switches, you shouldn't need a switch between the two (unless you have more devices to wire in at either endpoint than you have ports available). What you want to do is turn off DHCP and all firewalling/filtering on the R7000 which you will use as your AP, then assign that same R7000 a static IP on the same subnet as the router R7000, then wire the AP R7000 to the router R7000 from one lan port to another. For your wired PC, if you can wire directly to the R7000 being used as the router, that may give you slightly lower latency, otherwise wiring in to the AP should also work. 2.) For the 2.4Ghz band, there are only 3 total channels that don't overlap at all (1, 6, and 11). For 5Ghz, I believe in the USA there are 9 total channels usable without too much difficulty. So as long as you run your same-frequency broadcasts on 2 separate channels, you should be good. For a bit more education, here's a pretty good small article.

Hope those thoughts help!

Thanks for your helpful suggestions. I've been looking at a ZYWALL110, it seems to do everything I want. I was curious if you have any experience with these devices? They advertise gigabit speeds through with the SPI firewall enabled.