home wireless router/ap: standalone or integrated into router?

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matt_garman

Active Member
Feb 7, 2011
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Short version: for setting up a wireless access point in the home, is there any difference between using a standalone device (running something like dd-wrt) versus setting up an access point via a wireless network adapter attached to a PC?

Long version: I currently have what I assume is a fairly typical home network setup: high speed internet services (dsl or cable) connects directly to one NIC of a low-power dual-nic system that acts as a firewall, router, NAT box. The other NIC connects to my switch, to which all other computers in my home connect.

Also hanging off the switch is a wireless router with dd-wrt installed; it is basically configured as a wireless access point.

Problem is I forgot the IP address of the wireless router. I also couldn't find it doing a complete scan of all possible private IPs with nmap! So I don't know what's going on. But it works for existing clients. I have it setup for MAC filtering, so without the IP, I can't go into the web GUI and add new MAC addresses to the whitelist. (Discovered this when my wife's friend was visiting and wanted internet access on her laptop... had to give her a long Cat5 cable instead of using wireless!)

So I was thinking I could simplify this whole setup if I just put a wireless adapter on the firewall/router/NAT box, and configured it as an access point.

Conceptually, this seems like it wouldn't make a difference. But my main concern is signal strength. We have a fairly large house (wireless access point in the basement); it seems to me that the signal coming from a standalone device might go farther than something that's designed to hang off a PC. My thinking is that something that's meant to attach to a PC is probably designed to be used as a client, whereas a standalone device is designed to be a server.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Matt

Edit: my current access point is the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, and I was looking at this Rosewill RNX-N2X Wireless-N USB Dongle.
 
Last edited:

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
1,956
212
63
New Zealand
Ah wireless, another of my hobbies that has gotten out of control.
I have put this hobby on the back burner as LSI RAID has taken over :)

With my home setup.

I have a Dlink DIR-655 WLAN Router hanging of my main PC in the office.
It gives great range and its 300Mbps Wifi, 1Gbps wired, but not DD-WRT capable, don't really need it at home.
We also have a rather large house, and it covers the whole house and quite a way outside as well. (but single story)

I setup the house with CAT5e cable (as I got it free), all the rooms have a connection.
Only thing being used though is my Satellite receiver PVR a Linux box, it's only 100Mbps
This is another passion out of control as the Sat receiver resembles nothing of what is was when I bought it (highly modified)
It can dish out Web-TV either wireless or wired via the router, wile the TV can watch another channel, record a 3rd bla ble.

In the office all the cables come out of the wall (well with pretty sockets)
The router has 4x 1Gig ports and a 1Gig WAN port.

The printer is wireless and can sit any where in the house and this is great doesn't need to be anywhere near the router.

The ocean of laptops that reside in the house all hook up happily any where in the house.

My recommendations get something with 3x Antenna's if going 300Mbs+
The 3 antenna's give better range.
Don't get dongles, the range will be crap, get a dedicated wireless router/AP
I was a consultant for OxfordTec and they sent me a set of 5dbi antenna's these help to boost the range if budget allows and the router's antenna's can be changed.
They also sent me heap of WLAN PCIe and PCI mini cards to test, be careful here too as there are lemons.

I also have a Linksys AM300 DSL modem, it's a great modem as it's one of the very few that allows 1/2 bridged mode.
This plugs into the router directly via WAN port.

Once the price of HDD's settle down, my main PC will become the server to dish out movies etc around the house.
I may build a separate box for this, not sure yet.
Possibly even combine the lot into a Media PC with PCIe dual tuner Satellite receiver card

Computer having one 1x 1Gb LAN is enough for now everything works from the router.

If you need an access point else where in the house for blind spots/rage, get a 2nd wireless router and use wired cable to it and set it up an access point


Have you tried a factory reset on the router ?
Normally holding in the reset button for about 10sec does the job
Should then allow full access.

Hope this is of use.
 
Last edited:

_Adrian_

Member
Jun 25, 2012
48
5
8
Leduc, AB
I'm running 3 Wireless routers...

The first 2 are for coverage ( Dlink DIR825 Rev.B - Overlapped channels -> Running DD-WRT ) while the 3rd is the ILO and Management network for the servers.
Both DD-WRT Routers are direct connection to my Main Switch ( Woven TRX-100 )
WAN_1 - IPv4 Internet Service ( 150/Mbit/s Down - 25Mbit/s Up )
WAN_2 - IPv6 Tunnel Broker Connection
WAN_3 - OpenVPN ( Remote Tunnel )
WAN_1 through WAN_3 is one physical connection

LAN_1 - contains the wired devices in the household ( 1Gb )
LAN_2 - contains my WIFI ( single 1Gb connection to each AP )
LAN_3 - contains my VOIP devices ( 1Gb)
LAN_4 - contains my servers ( 10Gb network - IPoIB )

Whole house is done in CAT5E.
3 Bedrooms with dual feeds, 1 feed in the kitchen, 4 in living room, 2 in dinning room and 4 in the rec room and 2 in my office.
Thankfully the TRX-100 has 48x 1Gb port and 4x 10G backbone ports.
2 of the 10Gb ports are tied into my TopSpin 120 switch which ties together all the servers and the Firewall ( which doesnt support IPoIB yet... but soon will :)
 

dba

Moderator
Feb 20, 2012
1,477
184
63
San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
I once had a similar problem. My wireless AP had been running for several years but I eventually wanted to make a configuration change. Oddly, I could not find the web-based UI on the IP where it "should" have been and I also could not find it with a quick IP/port scan. A day or so later it dawned on me that I had been scanning for IPs with my laptop, using wifi, whereas the AP was set up to be administrable only via the wired connection. Might that be your issue as well?


Short version: for setting up a wireless access point in the home, is there any difference between using a standalone device (running something like dd-wrt) versus setting up an access point via a wireless network adapter attached to a PC?

Long version: I currently have what I assume is a fairly typical home network setup: high speed internet services (dsl or cable) connects directly to one NIC of a low-power dual-nic system that acts as a firewall, router, NAT box. The other NIC connects to my switch, to which all other computers in my home connect.

Also hanging off the switch is a wireless router with dd-wrt installed; it is basically configured as a wireless access point.

Problem is I forgot the IP address of the wireless router. I also couldn't find it doing a complete scan of all possible private IPs with nmap! So I don't know what's going on. But it works for existing clients. I have it setup for MAC filtering, so without the IP, I can't go into the web GUI and add new MAC addresses to the whitelist. (Discovered this when my wife's friend was visiting and wanted internet access on her laptop... had to give her a long Cat5 cable instead of using wireless!)

So I was thinking I could simplify this whole setup if I just put a wireless adapter on the firewall/router/NAT box, and configured it as an access point.

Conceptually, this seems like it wouldn't make a difference. But my main concern is signal strength. We have a fairly large house (wireless access point in the basement); it seems to me that the signal coming from a standalone device might go farther than something that's designed to hang off a PC. My thinking is that something that's meant to attach to a PC is probably designed to be used as a client, whereas a standalone device is designed to be a server.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Matt

Edit: my current access point is the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, and I was looking at this Rosewill RNX-N2X Wireless-N USB Dongle.
 

cactus

Moderator
Jan 25, 2011
830
75
28
CA
I have a Dlink DIR-655 at my parents house working as a AP. Two story and good coverage all over the house. Old setup was two WRT-54Gs, one on the second story and one on the first. I also have a Linksys E3000 with DD-WRT on it at my house. Single story house with good coverage. I would go with something that has external antennas if you want to get away with a single AP for the whole house.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
I once had a similar problem. My wireless AP had been running for several years but I eventually wanted to make a configuration change. Oddly, I could not find the web-based UI on the IP where it "should" have been and I also could not find it with a quick IP/port scan. A day or so later it dawned on me that I had been scanning for IPs with my laptop, using wifi, whereas the AP was set up to be administrable only via the wired connection. Might that be your issue as well?
I will admit, I have done this too. One benefit with moving to a pfsense box is that I was able to put wireless AP's behind that and can access pfsense from WiFi :)
 

_Adrian_

Member
Jun 25, 2012
48
5
8
Leduc, AB
That's why I keep telling people...
Running static IP's bound to MAC's is always the solution !

Thats what i do on my network and I yet have to be locked out of my own network
 

matt_garman

Active Member
Feb 7, 2011
212
40
28
I once had a similar problem. My wireless AP had been running for several years but I eventually wanted to make a configuration change. Oddly, I could not find the web-based UI on the IP where it "should" have been and I also could not find it with a quick IP/port scan. A day or so later it dawned on me that I had been scanning for IPs with my laptop, using wifi, whereas the AP was set up to be administrable only via the wired connection. Might that be your issue as well?
That's the kind of thing I often do, but not in this case. In the end, I'm almost certain it was a DD-WRT bug. I spent some time reading the DD-WRT forums, and found out that you're not supposed to use the "latest stable release" linked on the main page. Instead, you're supposed to use the DD-WRT forums to see what the real latest stable release is (there's a named sticky thread, though I forget the name of the thread, and I don't have my notes handy). After I read about this, I realized that the version of DD-WRT I was previously using had a lot of known wacky bugs. So I upgraded to the right firmware version, re-configured, and now everything is fine.