2 routers home network

[joe_hydro]

Here is how my network is set up:

I have a home network involving two routers, one wireless, one wired.

My cable internet connection comes in on the second floor of my house, into the WAN port of a Linksys WRT54GS Wireless Router. A laptop on that floor makes use of the wireless connection and is used for work purposes, and a Desktop PC also connects to an ethernet port on the wireless.

A network cable connects to another one of the ports on the wireless and runs down to my basement where it connects to the WAN port of a SMC Barricade SMC7004ABR wired router. Two desktop PCs connect to the wired router in the basement.

The internal IP of the wireless router is 192.168.1.1, it has DHCP enabled with a lease time of one day and distributes IPs in the 192.168.1.100 - 192.168.1.149 range.

The IP of the wired router with respect to the wireless is 192.168.1.100 at the moment, I can't figure out how to get the lease time to last forever on the wireless, so it changes every day. The internal IP of the wired router on the basement network is 192.168.2.1, distributing IPs in the 192.168.2.2 - 192.168.2.40 range. The wired router has DHCP enabled and has the option of a lease time of forever, so those IPs stay static.

The laptop upstairs is used for work purposes and needs a stable internet connection. It also has been configured with WEP wireless security to encrypt it or whatever.

Two ports are forwarded to the wired router and then to my main PC in the basement, for gaming/downloading. These are a pain in the ass, as the wireless router keeps changing the address of the wired router, and I have to re-forward these every day.

When this is all set up at first, everything works 100%. After a day or two, sometimes less, the laptop's connection no longer works, while the connections on the other PCs sometimes continue to work perfectly. The laptop's connection seems to drop most often when my main PC in the basement is doing something that takes up alot of bandwidth, and returns to normal if my PC is shut down. Although, sometimes this doesn't work, and the only solution is to reset and reconfigure the wireless router's settings, WEP security and all.

I should also mention that the connection on my main PC occasionally stops working, at which point I disconnect power to the wired router and then reconnect it and the connection is re-established.

Every computer in the house is running Windows XP, with the exception of the upstairs desktop, which is running WIn98Se.

Please, help me fix this network!!

-Joe

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'd simplify the network and have a switch downstairs, instead of another router. You're creating a double NAT'd network...which isn't the ideal setup.

[joe_hydro]

Ok, but is there a way I can make it work with the hardware I have?

[YeOldeStonecat]

Ok, but is there a way I can make it work with the hardware I have?

Well you could do a sort of bubble gum and duct tape job.....jury rig your SMC router and pretend it's just a switch.

Log into the SMC router...since its LAN IP is already in a different IP range than the main router upstairs..you have the first step done. Just remember what its IP is.

So log into the SMC..and disable DHCP.

Now uplink the SMC to the Linksys router upstairs...but taking the CAT 5 out of the WAN port of the SMC..and plugging into one of the LAN ports...probably an uplink port or something.

Now you're basically just using it as a 4 port switch...and not even utilizing the routing features. Your PCs will be getting 192.168.1.xxx from the Linksys upstairs.

[joe_hydro]

It doesn't have anything called an uplink port on it... WAN and four LANs

I can just plug the WAN into one of the LAN ports and that'll work?

[joe_hydro]

Would a switch downstairs instead of a router solve the dropped connection problem on the laptop?

[randomousity]

As far as getting your laptop, connected to wifi, to have a static IP address, why not just manually assign it an IP address from outside the range that the DHCP on the router assigns? For instance, 192.168.1.99? Basically, any address from .1-.99, or from .150-254 will work, and won't have any conflicts with the DHCP on the router. As long as the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, which it probably is, then any addresses 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.254 will work when connected to the router, regardless of how they're connected (wired or wifi).

You can also assign the downstairs router a static IP the same way, maybe 192.168.1.98, though as YeOldeStonecat said, you'll still be doing NAT twice.

What he was saying is, if you unplug the cable that's going from router to router from the SMC, and then plug that end into a LAN port instead of the WAN port (on the SMC), and leave nothing connected to the WAN port, and do the configuration changes he mentioned, then anything plugged into the SMC will get its IP from the Linksys upstairs.

[joe_hydro]

I want to give the IP's assigned by Linksys a lease time of forever but have no idea how. On the Linksys a leasetime of 0 means one day.

How can I manually assign an IP?

I'm going to try making the SMC act as a switch now, wish me luck...

___

...ok I've got it set up as a switch now and it seems to be working well, the linksys has assigned me an IP. I'll need to wait and see if the laptop still drops the connection.

___

I have just tried manually assigning my computer an IP address by going to the TCP/IP properties of my network adapter. I chose an IP outside the DHCP range of the router, (192.168.1.67) I put the default gateway as the internal IP of the Linksys, I tried leaving DNS blank and I tried filling it in with the address I saw under DNS 1 on the router.

This didn't work, network connections says everything is working great, file sharing works with all the PCs in the house and everything, but the internet won't do a thing. ..

___

It was the wrong DNS I put in, I think my problem's solved now. Thanks for your help guys.