My Comcast router is wireless and I would like to use my old Netgear router to receiver the signal so that I can use two computers in my basement that do not have wireless cards. Can the router be setup to receive the signal and distribute it even though it was designed to do the opposite?
This is very much possible. Third party firmware like tomato and DD-WRT can accomplish this. Go to www.dd-wrt.com to determine if your router is compatible. What you want to do is called a wireless bridge
My D-Link DAP-1522 wireless access point has a bridge mode that would work for this.
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=663
In bridge mode it receives a wireless signal from the router then you can plug wired devices into the bridge using Ethernet cable. A wireless bridge is only going to work well if it has a strong signal.
The bridge has to be setup on the source which in this case is a Comcast modem so I don't think you can do what you want. You could do it with two routers perhaps, but a better solution might be to use a Powerline Adapter to send the signal from the Comcast modem through your house wiring to a router in the basement.
Would it work if I used two routers and setup one off the Comcast router?
Checked and my Netgear won't do it and purchasing a linksys that will do it now. Will the Comcast router need to be setup to enable me to use the new router as a bridge and could it possible prevent me from doing this if it is not able to be setup for a bridge?
Most people use DD-WRT to change the code in the router to support bridging. I did this with an old Linksys router and it worked well for several years until the router died. I'm looking at doing the same to a Cisco/Linksys E2300 Wireless b/g/n router as there is now a DD-WRT load for it available.
Also, my previous post was wrong. The bridge is setup on the 2nd router, not the primary modem/router.
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