Wireless woes at school

[jepeters]

I'm in over my head with wireless access for our small high school.

A short while ago I bought a Lynksys Wireless-G Broadband Router (WRT54G) and all I had to do was plug it in. I didn't configure anything or load any software. I just connected it to one of our Cat-5 drops and it worked--Internet access and server access.

This Friday, Staples had a BIG sale on a NETGEAR wireless router (WGB511NA)& PCMCIA card. When I described our Linksys setup, the salesman told me that the NETGEAR system would work in the same way. But upon setting it up tonight, all I can get is wireless Internet--no access to the server at all.

On the Linksys, the cat-5 cable went to one of the 4 ports, NOT to the Internet port. On the Netgear, I get nothing if I connect that way. If I connect a Cat-5 drop to the Internet port on the Netgear, I get the Internet but no server access. The instructions for the NETGEAR talk about DSL modems and Cable, and how you need to connect the router to the ethernet card of your desktop computer, so it appears as though this was meant for a small home network.

Is there something inherently different about this product that will prevent me from ever getting it to see our server?

[bailey]

first, you useing a broadband router to connect to another router(the schools) you can't do it that way, ai belive all that you need to have is the wireless acess point and not the router.

[jepeters]

But the Linksys is a broadband router and it is working fine--or is that in an 'access point' configuration? (I've never even bothered to look at the instructions that came with the Linksys. Maybe I'll have to dig them out)

[bailey]

the way you have it connected, I think it is just acting like a acess point,
or maybe if I said a switch with wireless, I also have a linksys broadband router plus acess point and could not find anything in the manual on setting it up as a acess point only.
but that may be why it working that way.

heck I got 4 linksys routers here on my shelf doing nothing, I went to the G series now and all the others are B.

[kevinf]

i think maybe u can buy a switch (not a router) and a wireless access point, and just plug the switch into the port in the dorm, and connect ur computers with wires to the switch and connect the access point to the switch

[glc]

IP addressing and subnetting issue. A Linksys is 192.168.1.1, but a Netgear is 192.168.0.1 by default. You are trying to do NAT in 2 different subnets.