Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Wifi

iMac Dropping Wi-fi Despite All Efforts while other devices work fine

snap_dragon — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:17:17 -0800

I have an iMac using Snow Leopard. I use my apartment public w-fi and it has worked fine up to a few months back. It started dropping wi-fi no matter where the Mac was positioned in the apartment while my PC and a few other tablets worked fine consistently (tried them at times when the Mac stopped to a several minute crawl or gave me message of no connection). I have read several threads all over the net from Apple boards to other boards and have done the measures of 1)renewing DCHP lease 2)clearing the setting of airport 3)deleting plists 4)emptying cache 5)deleting keychain 6)resetting PRAM. I fogot that i initially played the game of turning Airport off and on a lot. I've done these steps on several occasions for it to either work for minutes to a day or so and then back to zilch. I took it to my workplace where there is public wi-fi and it worked flawlessly. The caveat on that as it might matter : I did a reinstall of Snow Leopard from my disc at home and then took it to work and went through the software update to bring it back to the current version of SLeopard. In the quick update I saw some sort of airport file added (i think, as it flew by real quick). So I now have my totally updated iMac back home and it has worked for a week and it has started ALL OVER AGAIN. I called my publc wi-fi provider through our complex and they couldn't diagnose the issue but thought it could need a repeater though it worked find for 7 months prior. I'm willing to try any tips. Thanks for any input and have a good weekend.

need help investigating slow Linux home LAN

xbonesgt — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:25:39 -0800

Why are file transfers between PCs on my home network so slow when I can download stuff from the internet way faster? I'm a developer, not an IT guy; I don't even know where to start looking to figure this stuff out. Details below - My home network consists of one Ubuntu 12.10 laptop and one Ubuntu 12.04 HTPC/file server/etc. The laptop connects to my LAN over 802.11n, and the PC over GigE. The router is an Asus RT-N66U. I have no problems accessing the internet from either machine; download speeds are fine on both according to speedtest.net . The problem is that it is agonizingly slow to access the PC from the laptop.

I've got the PC set up to export a directory over CIFS, so I can mount it on the laptop and get to my music and photos. Reading from or writing to this directory takes ages. It takes ten seconds to list the contents of a directory from a command line, and it takes 5-6 seconds to open a ~4MB image in GIMP. I suspect I've got smbd configured incorrectly, but then again I had the same problems when I had everything set up using NFS, but then again I might have set that up incorrectly too. This isn't a new problem for me, so I don't think it's the result of any recent software updates.

Any ideas on where to start digging? thanks!

Why is my wireless router so slow, and how can I make it faster?

Greg Nog — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:06:56 -0800

My Wi-Fi is slow, and it seems to be the fault of the router. How can I make it faster? Barring that, is there a better router I could buy? Details inside. My wireless router is a Netgear WNR2000 model, and it is slow. When my computer's plugged in to the router by a physical ethernet cable, I have the following results from SpeedTest.com:

12ms ping
14.59 Mbps download
.99 Mbps upload

But over the air, the results are:

20 ms ping
2.62 Mbps download
.97 Mbps upload

I feel like it didn't used to be this slow, but maybe I'm wrong? Is it possible for a router to get slower over time? I've had it for about three years now.

I have checked the channel it's on, and it seems to be the only router in the vicinity on its channel, so I don't think that's creating interference. The router is also about a foot away from the wall, so I don't think that's interfering with it (plus, the speed is the same when my computer's right next to the router).

Is there anything I can do to speed it up? Is this just the maximum speed for this type of router? (my guess is no, given the puported specs from Netgear) Would I be better off buying a different router?

Possibly-relevant details: WEP encryption is being used on the wi-fi, and my computer's a MacBook using an AirPort to receive the signal.

Wifi not connecting on laptop, but works on phone?

cozenedindigo — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:27:11 -0800

My laptop refuses to connect to my home wifi network, saying a cable is unplugged. It's not. My laptop has been working fine up until today. I started up and tried to connect. I got a message saying "a network cable is disconnected. I tried disabling the wired connection, thinking it was confused. I tried resetting the router and the modem, and shutting down/removing the battery from my laptop. I checked all the cables and made sure they were connected. I checked my wireless adapter in Device Manager, it says it's functioning properly and drivers are up to date. Nothing's worked.

The odd thing is that my iPhone can connect perfectly fine to the network. So I'm at a loss. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Intranet only Wi-Fi router? I want to make one.

usermac — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:05:43 -0800

I want to use a captive portal, limiting the connectee to only the website I put on the router. No internet access nor is it being connected to my internet. First I want a way to only have the user connect then interactive with a one page or small website that does not connect to the internet. Ideally I'd want this to be an openwrt with CoovaChilli on a very small inexpensive wifi router. Possible?

What wifi-extending method is best for a garage-turned-studio?

acidic — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:32:04 -0800

My rented studio is located right next to the main house, but the wifi signal coming from my landlord is very weak. What can I do that won't inconvenience my landlord? The landlord has U-verse wifi (a password-protected 2Wire router). The router is located fairly close to my house; it can't be moved. There are no ethernet jacks in my studio, although the previous tenant had cable TV so there's a coax cable coming out of the wall (I've checked, and it supplies the free channels). So I figure my options are:

1. Wifi extender, located on the wall closest to the main house, or outside (weather?) I installed an extender at my parents' house, and it works ok, but I would like tips on finding the best one.
2. Ethernet over powerline. I think my landlord would be willing to plug the router into one of these, but I don't even know if it will work because my space was originally a detached garage.
3. Separate internet service. The wifi cuts out for a minute or two at a time several times a night, and it's pretty annoying, since I do a lot of streaming. I'd be willing to pay for separate internet service (Time Warner), if that's even allowed (we share a mailing address) and would solve the problem (or will the connection drop affect both services).
4. Something else? Access point, antenna, etc?

Dropbox + coffee shop wifi = secure?

bluecore — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:20:47 -0800

How secure is Dropbox on an open coffee shop wifi? I login through HTTPS and use two-factor authentication, but how secure is it to access/edit/create/sync files through the dropbox app on an open (non WPA encrypted) coffee shop wifi connection?

Assume newest version of OS X Mountain Lion, fully patched, file sharing off, OS firewall on. But do I need a VPN?

Help me not outstay my welcome.

doiheartwentyone — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:31:13 -0800

Where in London or surrounding areas can I hole up with my laptop and work, without having to get drunk or wired, or incur the ire of the management? I work from home much of the time, but sometimes I find I need a change of scenery to stay focused. I'd like to be able to spend the occasional half day in a different location. Pubs and cafes seem the obvious choice, but as came up in this question many places (understandably) discourage campers.

So hive mind, where can I go? Food or drink places aren't completely out as long as they wouldn't mind me spending four hours there, and the consumption of four hours' worth of product wouldn't have significant...other effects....

Indoors is pretty much a requirement (been snowing today) and wifi would be good but it doesn't have to be free. I've googled desk space rental, but it seems to be always on a weekly/monthly contract basis, I'd like places I can just turn up, since I'd ideally be using a different one each time.

Although central London is the obvious place to look, I'd also be interested in particularly amenable places in commuterland. Working in Brighton for a day would be sweet.

I'd like to buy 6 months of unlimited Internet in England.

iamkimiam — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 10:25:57 -0800

I'm moving house next weekend and new place does not have WiFi. It's a six month lease and I'll probably be moving out of the country after that. I use a lot of internet (streaming music, downloading podcasts, films, sending large files, using cloud services, etc.) and so I need something unlimited or pretty near it. Everything I'm seeing online so far is either too much £ for too little internet (£20 for 2GB per month, seriously??) or too much commitment (12-18 month contracts for phone, broadband and TV). I only need internet. What are my options, if any? Thanks!

In search of a lasting wireless network solution

Rhaomi — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 07:12:09 -0800

After wasting two different off-days trying to get my damnable modem+router working, I want to return them both and get something entirely new. Any good recommendations for a solid, reliable DSL modem and wireless router set-up with decent NAS support? THE STORY SO FAR:

- had an ISP-supplied hybrid modem/router for a few years that worked fine
- bought a new laptop last year and swapped the hard drive for an SSD
- decided to use the spare hard drive as an external drive for storing large media files and performing automatic backups
- bought an Apricorn USB hard drive enclosure designed to support NAS stuff
- bought a Western Digital My Net N600 router with a USB port designed to support NAS stuff (the old modem had no USB ports)
- ran into endless bizarre problems trying to get the N600 maintaining a connection to the old modem in bridge mode
- discovered plugging in and using the external drive was crashing the router firmware
- exchanged N600 for a better-spec'd N750
- more bizarre problems; dropped connections; router web interface sluggish
- tried installing a firmware upgrade from the official website
- now the router won't even boot up, *not even after a paperclip factory reset*

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

There are just too many potential glitches and conflicts here for me to deal with any more -- the fact that the modem is old (and in bridge mode), the general bugginess of Western Digital's routers, the fact that I'm using a laptop hard drive instead of one purpose-built for NAS work.

So I want to start from scratch. New DSL modem. New router. Maybe even a new hard drive and/or hard drive enclosure if that might help.

What I need to know:

- What's the best option for a reliable dedicated DSL modem? No-frills is fine as long as it's reasonably fast and can support a PPPoE connection type.

- What's the best option for a reliable wireless router with support for an external USB hard drive? I'm willing to spend more if it can buy me quality, dependability, and a no-hassle set-up with a decent web interface. I'm seriously tired of troubleshooting unaccountable wifi problems via unhelpful router settings pages that crash often and don't tell me anything useful.

- What's the best option for a reliable external hard drive set-up? I'm not doing enterprise-level stuff here -- I just want it to store my iTunes, my movies, and have some space left over to automatically back up a ~256GB SSD. I already have a laptop hard drive in the Apricorn enclosure I mentioned, and it did allow me to (temporarily) access my files wirelessly. But I'm not sure if the crashes I mentioned were due to the Western Digital router being shoddy or the hard drive/enclosure set-up being inappropriate for that purpose. Should I maybe reformat the hard drive for use as a NAS? Or would it be better to just get a purpose-built USB NAS drive?

I'd also be interested in a decent combination DSL modem/router with NAS support if that would be easier to set up. My current, years-old modem/router hybrid works flawlessly, but just doesn't have any USB ports to plug a drive into (only a USB B port, which apparently can't support that kind of thing).

Any recommendations -- especially based on personal experience with the device -- very much appreciated!

Wi-Fi and cell service drop out intermittently at our apartment. Why?

summerteeth — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:21:55 -0800

First, let me state that I have no idea if these two things are interrelated, but it seems like they could be, so I'm going to go ahead and conjecture here: our AT&T cell phone service drops from nearly full 3G to one bar from time to time (usually during calls, of course) and our wi-fi does the same thing. I've tried timing it and I can't seem to nail it down to anything. Could these service drops be related? Some details:

Both of us are using MacBook pros and iPhone 4s. Our modem/router/wireless access point is a Motorola Surfboard that is probably about 5 years old now. We previously lived in a different apartment in Chicago and I don't think we had the same wi-fi problem there, but I suppose we could be wrong.

Any ways that I can test connectivity in some way that would be beneficial to fixing the problem? Is it possible that there's some sort of signal interference that is causing both signals to drop? I'm not sure if it happens simultaneously, but that'll be the next thing I check (waiting for the wi-fi to drop and then checking the phone connectivity meter).

The building is in Jamaica Plain, Boston, not far from a previous apartment where we had little to no problem with cell connection. The building is brick and there is a hill behind it, to the west. We are on the second floor of the building.

Not sure where to start on this one, and I'm happy to provide any more information for folks with good ideas. Thanks!

Why is my Verizon DSL so slow?

mnemonic — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:46:20 -0800

My Verizon DSL is peaking at about 1 mbit/s. Our plan should be providing 1.1-15. Why is my internet so much slower than expected? Given that youtube.com/my_speed shows many people on my ISP are getting much higher speeds. I'm wondering if it's due to my setup: Linksys WRT54G running the latest Tomato firmware, while I'm on a MacBook Air using wifi. The (WPA protected) wifi is shared with my roommate, and I administrate the router/AP and can view any clients connected to the network and the bandwidth usage. It's just me on there usually, and it's always this slow. Sooo what could it be?

Furniture blocking wifi signal?

cozenedindigo — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 04:40:42 -0800

Is it possible for furniture to block a wifi signal? Or at least make it drop regularly.. My parents have recently acquired a rather large (wooden) entertainment unit in the living room, and I'm finding the wifi signal is weak (in that specific room) at the best of times, other times dropping entirely. There were no problems before the unit was put in, and signal improves right when you step out of the room.

Is there any way to mitigate this? The router and modem are in the basement. Is moving them to the first floor the only option? It doesn't seem like the issue is distance, since the signal is excellent 2 floors up from the router.

Boost my in-law's WiFi signal (from 1500 miles away)

caution live frogs — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:59:21 -0800

My father-in-law needs help connecting his Windows 7 laptop to a WiFi network; he is apparently dealing with an interference issue that stops him from connecting while at home. This is complicated by the fact that I am 1500 miles away and will not be able to help in person. He is not tech savvy. Suggestions? In-laws are in Texas during the winter. They live in a retirement community with WiFi. There is a WiFi access point right next to their home. They cannot connect to it. If they go across the street, their computer connects just fine, so I know it isn't a problem with whether the computer works or not.

I know nothing about the park network, but pretty safe to assume that it's b/g/n with a required password.

Their winter home is a trailer underneath a permanent roof. Their neighbor suspects the roof itself is blocking the signal due to the way it was constructed. In addition, their laptop is pretty inexpensive, so it could be a weak internal WiFi antenna. Last I knew, when they arrived it worked, but after more neighbors arrived at the park for the season and begin using WiFi, they couldn't connect.

Option 1 is an external WiFi adapter that can pull a better signal. I worry that adding a second WiFi adapter will cause more headaches. I haven't ever added a USB adapter to a laptop that already had working WiFi. It will be extremely difficult to walk him through disabling the internal adapter. Plus, unless Windows is smart enough to re-enable it automatically, he will call me asking why WiFi no longer works if he leaves home without the USB adapter.

I would much prefer Option 2, having him set up a WiFi to wired bridge. Can you do this on a network you don't control? As long as it is possible to choose the right SSID and set the password on the bridge using a web interface, then he should be plug and play with an ethernet cable. This seems like the simplest option as he could move the device to anywhere it gets a good signal, would not have to make any changes to internal devices on the laptop, and most problems would be solvable by power-cycling the device.

My father-in-law is not thrilled about it but is willing to spend $30-$50 to get online. Given that I am not there to either help him select a device or get it set up, I don't want him buying anything that a teenager at Best Buy foisted off on him. I am more than happy to buy something off Amazon/NewEgg, for example, and have it shipped to him, but I don't want him stuck with a device that won't help or can't be configured by a tech-illiterate senior citizen.

Asking here for hardware recommendations, keeping high ease of use and low cost as the two primary goals here.

I have to provide wifi. Tonight!

hot_monster — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:02:05 -0800

I set up an event tonight where we need wifi. I thought there was wifi but turns out there isn't. How can I get 5-7 people's laptops connected to the internet without spending too much cash? Is this even possible on short notice? I know you can turn smart phones into hotspots but mine is a dumb sprint phone. Changing the venue is possible, but I want to avoid it. Halp!

WiFi connectivity problem at work

zardoz — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:36:28 -0800

At work I have a laptop (running Windows XP) that connects to the Internet via WiFi. Two other coworkers sit next to and across from me, and they connect the same way. About a year ago, we started experiencing connectivity problems. Our connection just cuts out *snap* out of the blue. If I leave it alone, it will sometimes reconnect on its own. And sometimes it doesn’t. So to fix it manually, I go into the Wireless Connection Network screen. My office has three separate wireless networks it connects to (all with the same password). In the Wireless Connection screen it will show that I am connected to one of those three, with the other two (or sometimes just one) listed below. I click on one of the others, hit “connect”, and wait 10 seconds or so for it to connect over. Usually this works, but sometimes it doesn’t. Not right away; I have to manually do it several times.

Before about a year ago, we never had this problem. Now it’s a daily, constant problem. On a good day we can go for several hours without being kicked off, but today for example it’s every five minutes.

For my other two coworkers, they have the same problems. It’s a big, open plan office, and I think other workers either don’t use the Internet much at all or they have a wired LAN connection. Unfortunately, due to where our desks sit in the room, we can’t use a LAN connection, only wireless.

There are two WiFi routers in the room, and we tried turning them off and on, but that didn’t change anything. We’ve talked to our boss about it, but he’s been less than helpful…of course, this should be an issue for the company IT guy, but the thing is, we’re not really supposed to be surfing the Internet; our jobs don’t really necessitate it. So we don’t want to keep bringing the subject up—it’s a bit awkward.

Any thoughts? What could this problem be coming from?

How many WiFi access points can co-exist in the same space?

wutangclan — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:18:49 -0800

Local cable internet company wants to blanket my condo tower with WiFi APs to provide universal WiFi access for their subscribers. Will this degrade reception or throughput for existing private WiFi networks belonging to residents? I am on the strata council for my residential condo tower. It is a 25-storey building built with modern steel & concrete methods, about 8 suites per floor ranging from 700 to 1000 sq ft in size. This being downtown Vancouver, pretty much every resident already has their own WiFi AP. In the vicinity of my suite alone, I can see over a dozen different SSIDs.

We have been presented with a request from Shaw Cable (one of three or four major providers in my area) to install WiFi access points throughout the building. Access is for subscribers only. Should we (the strata council) let them?

My concern is that residents with their own WiFi APs will suffer from degraded reception / throughput. Aren’t there are a finite number of channels or frequencies? Is there a threshold of density of APs that shouldn’t be exceeded? Do modern APs intelligently co-exist with each other, switching channels automatically? Can they share channels?

Please help me diagnose my wifi problems

ottereroticist — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:19:45 -0800

I'm having problems with my home wifi network. I'm seeing sporadic periods (a couple of hours a day) where websites load slowly, partially, or not at all. How can I diagnose this problem? Are there router settings to try setting differently? Should I just get a new router? Sometimes a site stalls out on the message "Looking for [server]..."
Sometimes reloading a few seconds later works fine.
Sometimes sites are just dog-slow to load. Sometimes they load partially, then hang.

Restarting the router helps for a while, then it slows down again.

The problem started a week or so ago. I can't think what would have changed.

I'm pretty sure that problem lies with the router -- I just tried connecting directly to the cable modem via Ethernet, and the connection was fine.

Comcast Motorola SB5120 cable modem
D-Link DIR-655 router
Mac OSX 10.8.2 / 10.6.8 (on different laptops)

Internet, you're being weird. Stop it.

Rhaomi — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:01:41 -0800

Trying to set up a new wireless network and running into all kinds of strange problems. Connections dropped every few hours! Some machines work, some don't! Can connect to internet, can't connect to router! DOGS AND CATS LIVING TOGETHER (literally). Please help. The set-up is a little convoluted, but does work (until it doesn't).

The original router is an ISP-provided 2wire HomePortal 1700HW, a combination DSL modem/router that plugs directly into a phone jack and broadcasts it as a WiFi network. It's a few years old but has worked decently on its own up to this point, so I don't think the problem lies there.

The newcomer is a brand-new Western Digital My Net N600 router, acquired both to improve on the range of the old one and to provide networked storage capability for shared music and such.

Configuring the two of them to work properly was a bit of a dog, but I finally did get it working. The phone jack plugs into the old 2wire, now set to bridge mode to disable its built-in wireless capability. The 2wire plugs into the N600 via Ethernet. And the N600, armed with all the correct PPPoE login information from the ISP, correctly connects to and interprets the DSL coming in from the 2wire and broadcasts it out. Even the network storage works!

Problem is, every couple of hours this connection fails, and in the weirdest way possible.

Right now, I'm typing this on an old 'n' busted laptop running Windows XP. It's currently connected to the N600's wireless network and can browse the web no problem. All the status lights on the routers are green, running an ipconfig command returns normal IP address information (including the router's IP), I can ping the router at that location fine.

But I can't connect to the router's settings page (192.168.1.1). WTF?

Also, a visiting Chromebook can connect to the network but can't load any websites... except for AOL webmail, of all things. A test email sent from a phone showed up in the inbox fine, while Google, Facebook, etc. look dead. Not even Gmail, mail.live.com, or even just plain old aol.com work -- just mail.aol.com. This Chromebook doesn't have a data connection, btw, just WiFi. I say again: WTF?

Meanwhile, a newer Windows 7 laptop can't connect to the N600 network at all ("Unable to connect..."), and even plugging directly into the N600 router via Ethernet won't work -- I can ping it fine, but neither websites nor the router settings page itself will load.

Various mobile devices are likewise denied -- various iPhones and iPads can't connect to the network at all.

Power-cycling the N600 router solves all these problems and things work alright for all devices... for a few hours. Until everything craps out again, for no apparent reason.

What could be triggering this issue, and how do I fix it? I've dealt with wonky router stuff before, but it seems totally bizarre to me that:

- the status lights on both routers are fine, including the N600's "internet connection OK" light
- ONE laptop can connect to the router's WiFi and browse the web, and can ping the router, but can't access the router itself
- the other laptop can ping the router through a wired connection, but can't access the router settings or browse the web that way
- a Chromebook can connect to the network and can load *one* website (mail.aol.com), but nothing else
- no other device (apart from that first laptop that mysteriously works fine) can connect to the WiFi network at all

Any thoughts or advice appreciated; I'd love to get this problem fixed rather than have to venture back to Best Buy and try to find a replacement (maybe an N900? who knows).

Why did my iPhone's wifi range become terrible? Can it be fixed?

Winnemac — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:16:01 -0800

Why did my iPhone's wifi range become terrible? Can it be fixed? I woke up a week ago and found that overnight the wifi range of my iPhone 3GS had gone from acceptable to terrible. I have not changed anything on the phone for quite a while actually as I already have everything I need on there. OS is 5.1.1

If there is some trick to extending the range, I'd be glad to hear it.

Wireless Repeaters - Easy , effective, and fun?

elmonobonobo — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:55:02 -0800

Wireless Repeaters - Easy , effective, and fun? A friend is staying in the upstairs of a large house where she gets spotty signal from the home wifi to her ipad.

I think a wireless repeater is in order, but it would have to be (near-)zero configuration as there are no techies in the house.

Do repeaters really work? Are they easy to set up?

Are there other user-simple options that I should be considering?

Wifi for Dummies, or I Have a Little Netbook

still_wears_a_hat — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:57:44 -0800

I have a small netbook (Samsung NC10), running Windows XP, that I very much like for travel. But in some places, it doesn't connect to the internet over wifi. I've never tried to figure out why, or fix it: it's so far always been somewhere I could either skip being connected for a few days or plug directly into a router. But for an upcoming trip I'd like some help with a better plan and some tools and resources. To get ready so far, I've uninstalled/removed everything I didn't need, including an old VPN connection, deleted a lot of old wireless networks, and collected as much information as I was able to find about Windows XP not connecting to wifi. But it wasn't much, and some of it doesn't seem to apply to my netbook. I do have information finding and changing various wifi settings, restarting Wireless Zero Configuration and resetting Winsock. I also have copies of winsockxpfix.exe and MicrosoftFixit050203.msi that I will try running if I have a problem.

My question is - is there more information I should have? A good step-by-step guide somewhere I haven't found? A way to upgrade my netbook's networking to be mroe like Windows 7's (if that's any better)? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

(I guess a last resort option would be trying to upgrade the whole netbook OS to Windows 7, but I haven't had much success with OS upgrades in the past, and if the upgrade didn't work, I'm not sure I could reinstall XP. But if that's the best idea, I'd at least like to know that, then I could make up my mind.)

Can I force Skype to use wifi on my unlocked Nexus 4?

oliverburkeman — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 06:15:20 -0800

I can't figure out whether it's possible to force Skype to use available wifi signals, rather than my data allowance, on my unlocked Nexus 4. I'm using a T-Mobile no-contract sim, and I can see why the carriers would like to discourage this, but since the phone's unlocked (bought directly from Google) I'm thinking it must be possible. Is it?

WIFI networking: two routers on the same network

Mokusatsu — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 05:45:37 -0800

Hi, I am trying to set up a surplus router as a NAS and torrent appliance, to integrate into an existing network. The setup will use two routers, one to provide network and internet to everyone, the other will use TomatoUSB and will be dedicated to torrenting. Existing setup: A Netcomm all-in-one router which does VOIP, modem, WIFI, routing etc currently does all networking for the house. The household has three Windows PCs, three iPads, two smart phones, one network printer/scanner/fax. The most network intensive thing it ever does is torrent downloads, but VOIP call quality can be an issue sometimes.

I have an ASUS RT-N16 router, which I have flashed to TomatoUSB, which includes built in support for Transmission torrent software. I wish to use this as a dedicated torrent downloading machine, integrated with my existing network.

Flashing TomatoUSB on was fine once I found a compatible build, I installed Transmission QT on my PC and that's working fine too. Everything works.

But it's not set up properly. To get my computer to talk to the Tomato router I need to log in to the Tomato router's WIFI network. When I'm logged in to that WIFI network I can set up the torrents, but I'm disconnected from the rest of the network and can't print. Therefore I've got this awkward arrangement where I have to switch between WIFI networks depending on what I want to do.

Why? Because I can't figure out how to get it working the other way!

So this is less a question about TomatoUSB, more a basic question about network and WIFI setup, router configuration etc.

Currently the Tomato router is wired via its WAN port to one of the LAN ports of the Netcomm router. The Tomato router refuses to let me set it's network IP and subnet ranges the same as the WAN, hence I have two networks that don't talk to each other.

I do not require the Tomato router to do anything wirelessly, I'm happy enough to turn off its WIFI signal and have it communicate only with the network with ethernet cables.

I've heard about "bridging" routers, but admit I'm not knowledgable enough to know how to use it properly. My attempts to muck about with it and figure it out resulted more than once in being locked out of the configuration screen and having to factory reset, so maybe I need expert help!

Of course I have Googled the issue, but everything I have found so far describes setups different to what I want, like bridging Internet to the Tomato router and having it handle the whole network, or using the second router to extend WIFI range.

Also, I want to be able to quickly kill torrents if I have to, so although I could configure it so the Netcomm router bridges its internet connection to the Tomato router which then would handle all the WIFI, this is not the option I would like to go with. I wish for the Netcomm router to continue to handle everything it currently handles, which it does perfectly well, and for the Tomato router to simply join that network and be able to be switched off any time I so wish. Also, the Netcomm is doing a great job where it is, I am not worried about needing to increase the wireless range or anything like that.

Briefly, my questions are as follows:

Do I need two cables, one to the WAN and one to the LAN, or can I set it up so that a single ethernet cable (to either the LAN or WAN ports of the Tomato router) would join the Tomato router to the network? I assume it's possible to use one... how?

I also suspect I should be turning off DHCP and NAT from the Tomato. How do I do that without getting locked out of the device? Both previous times I've played with that I've had to reset to factory settings to get back in.

What LAN and WAN settings on the Tomato router would tell it just to passively join the other network and not try to form its own one?

Stream music from my pc to my android phone over local wireless.

cthuljew — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:30:43 -0800

I want an app that I install on my Droid 3 phone that'll find my computer on my home wireless network and which I can point to my music folder and stream. I've found a couple services that involve setting up local servers, web apps, and what have you. But ES File Explorer can find my Windows PC on my wireless network and transfer files without any hassle, and I want a music player that can do the same basic thing, but present my music as a tagged library, like the default Android music player. The idea here is that I can have my phone in my pocket, and walk around my apartment doing chores or whatever, but still have my entire music library available through my headphones.

I realize this is an absurdly specific request, but I vaguely suspect something like this exists, but is gonna be basically impossible to find via Google. Even a suggestion for a slightly more involved app (as in, one that requires a desktop application or something) is fine if it's elegant and fairly trivial to set up. Thanks, hivemind!