Add a second router to extend network?

Hi,

I have a fairly new Netgear Rangemax 240 that does a good job sending
the signal throughout half of our property.

I have a second Rangemax 240 still in the box that I planning to setup
in the other half of the house to extend the wireless signal (it really
drops off in some places) and also act as a wired hub for another PC in
that part of the house.

I figured that, even though I don't have any devices that can exploit
the extra bandwidth, the 240Mbps signal between the two routers would be
better than running a 100mbps cable from one room to another.

This setup seemed like a good idea at the time, and the salesman told me
it would work, but now I'm not sure how to go about setting up the
second router to get this to work.

Any suggestions before I start, or does this sound stupid?

Thanks.

Pupkin <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>I have a fairly new Netgear Rangemax 240 that does a good job sending
>the signal throughout half of our property.

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WPNT834.php

>I have a second Rangemax 240 still in the box that I planning to setup
>in the other half of the house to extend the wireless signal (it really
>drops off in some places) and also act as a wired hub for another PC in
>that part of the house.
>
>I figured that, even though I don't have any devices that can exploit
>the extra bandwidth, the 240Mbps signal between the two routers would be
>better than running a 100mbps cable from one room to another.

The 240 is the speed of the wireless link. You won't get a file
transfer rate of 240Mbits/sec. Various tests show about 100Mbits/sec
maximum.
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/0...834/index.html
See the thruput tables and graphs.

>This setup seemed like a good idea at the time, and the salesman told me
>it would work, but now I'm not sure how to go about setting up the
>second router to get this to work.
>
>Any suggestions before I start, or does this sound stupid?

You want to use the 2nd Rangemax 240 as an access point, not a router.
The Rangemax 240 apparently does NOT support WDS (wireless
distribution service). So, you must a CAT5 cable from the main router
to the added access point. See:
| http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi...s_access_point
for setup instructions.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

"Pupkin" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed). ..
> Hi,
>
> I have a fairly new Netgear Rangemax 240 that does a good job sending
> the signal throughout half of our property.
>
> I have a second Rangemax 240 still in the box that I planning to setup
> in the other half of the house to extend the wireless signal (it really
> drops off in some places) and also act as a wired hub for another PC in
> that part of the house.
>
> I figured that, even though I don't have any devices that can exploit
> the extra bandwidth, the 240Mbps signal between the two routers would be
> better than running a 100mbps cable from one room to another.

No. Cat5 cable is better

The wireless speed rating is a "best of all possible worlds" number - the
cable 100M is actually achievable - and the cable is 100M full duplex,
whereas the radio is half - ie only 1 device can send at 1 time.

in reality 802.11 and all its variations has a lot of overhead to manage the
radio specific bits - this normally limits you to 50% useful traffic across
the available bandwidth - and in many situations the speed rate adapts to a
lower setting as well.

Also for the 2nd device to act as a repeater, each repeated packet has to
cross the wireless channel twice - so you at least halve the thruput on top
of that.
>
> This setup seemed like a good idea at the time, and the salesman told me
> it would work, but now I'm not sure how to go about setting up the
> second router to get this to work.
>
> Any suggestions before I start, or does this sound stupid?

Cables are usually better where you have a useable route - useful for other
things well, more reliable, tolerates interference and so on better, faster.
And always run more cables in than you think you need.
>
> Thanks.
>
--
Regards

(E-Mail Removed) - replace xyz with ntl

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.internet.wireless, in article
<umZmg.459$(E-Mail Removed)>, stephen wrote:

>The wireless speed rating is a "best of all possible worlds" number - the
>cable 100M is actually achievable - and the cable is 100M full duplex,
>whereas the radio is half - ie only 1 device can send at 1 time.

Major nit - While the chances of getting a full bandwidth connection are
certainly better with wire, there is no way in hel? that any 100 Megabit
wired connection will reach a full 100 Megabit. For the same reason you
mention

>in reality 802.11 and all its variations has a lot of overhead to manage the
>radio specific bits

You forget about the 8 byte sync of Ethernet packet that precedes the
MAC address, and the required "Inter-Packet Gap" required to detect the
end of one packet, and the beginning of the next. Minor, but it adds up.
Likewise, not that many network stacks can tolerate a continuous stream
of "end-to-end" packets. 90 Megabit is a more realistic absolute maximum
transfer rate using a cross-over cable, and the sustained rate is going
to be dependent on the computer hardware at both ends, and what they are
doing. Sure, a Pentium with a 64 bit wide PCI bus is _capable_ of a
Gigabit/second, but only if it's not running an O/S, or user applications.
Most systems aren't used that way (32 bit color icons and other eye-candy
take a tremendous amount of CPU cycles - look up "Metcalfe's Law"). If you
are not using a direct cable, then you have to take into account the
capabilities of and load on the Ethernet switch or other active device
located between the two end systems.

Old guy

"Moe Trin" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.internet.wireless, in
article
> <umZmg.459$(E-Mail Removed)>, stephen wrote:
>
> >The wireless speed rating is a "best of all possible worlds" number - the
> >cable 100M is actually achievable - and the cable is 100M full duplex,
> >whereas the radio is half - ie only 1 device can send at 1 time.
>
> Major nit - While the chances of getting a full bandwidth connection are
> certainly better with wire, there is no way in hel? that any 100 Megabit
> wired connection will reach a full 100 Megabit. For the same reason you
> mention

Agreed.

But the difference for a cabled connection is minor.

i worked on a newspaper system (a long time ago). The interfaces between the
image processor and raster engine ran for several hours a day at 99.4% load.

Since this was with nearly all full size Enet frames and the layer 1
overhead of inter packet gap and preamble of 20 bytes on a full size frame
amounts to 1.3% or so - so the layer 2 useful load was getting up to 98%.

given the overheads in wireless where running at 50% useful bandwidth is
considered best case, and using a device as a repeater would halve that - 2%
overhead disappears into the noise....
>
> >in reality 802.11 and all its variations has a lot of overhead to manage
the
> >radio specific bits
>
> You forget about the 8 byte sync of Ethernet packet that precedes the
> MAC address, and the required "Inter-Packet Gap" required to detect the
> end of one packet, and the beginning of the next. Minor, but it adds up.

yes - and one of the big issues when you try to work at the limit of any
packet based system is exactly what does "wire speed" mean.

for example the clocking on an Ethernet port is +/- 100 parts / million - so
a "wire speed" switch may run 100% in and out, but still drop packets (long
on going argument with a customer).

> Likewise, not that many network stacks can tolerate a continuous stream
> of "end-to-end" packets. 90 Megabit is a more realistic absolute maximum
> transfer rate using a cross-over cable, and the sustained rate is going
> to be dependent on the computer hardware at both ends, and what they are
> doing. Sure, a Pentium with a 64 bit wide PCI bus is _capable_ of a
> Gigabit/second, but only if it's not running an O/S, or user applications.
> Most systems aren't used that way (32 bit color icons and other eye-candy
> take a tremendous amount of CPU cycles - look up "Metcalfe's Law"). If you
> are not using a direct cable, then you have to take into account the
> capabilities of and load on the Ethernet switch or other active device
> located between the two end systems.

Agreed again.

But many switches are as near to wire speed as makes no practical difference
(i recently ran some tests on a box for work with up to 20 * GigE - it ran
99% load full duplex on up to 18 at a time).

Since many "server optimised boxes" can fill a GigE pipe (or 2) - then 100M
is achievable.

more to the point networks may carry the aggregate of streams from many
devices - so it is good practice to make sure they dont impose extra
bottlenecks unless there is a good reason or tradeoff involved.

whether this matters for a home system is a different issue.
>
> Old guy
--
Regards

(E-Mail Removed) - replace xyz with ntl