Connection Issues with Netgear Router that have Private IP

Hey everyone,

This forum has always been helpful to me by answering the little stuff. Let's test it's limits :)

One of my clients has a Windstream Router that gives off the IP Address 192.168.3.X. So the default gateway for our network always has to be 192.168.3.1. All hardwired computers need to have a 192.168.3.X IP. I would like this to happen with all wireless devices. I know this is possible as I have gotten close to that goal, but not perfect. This is a mystery that I need solved by smarter networking minds. I have tried Windstream support (somewhat helpful) and Netgear Support (not helpful). Here's the story:

About six months ago my clients wanted to set up Wireless. So I put in the two netgear routers with IP Addresses of 192.168.1.X one downstairs and one upstairs and all was good. Until they started to use the wireless devices more. They needed scanning, access to shared folders on our the private network and remote services...

So for the past few months I have managed to get these netgear boxes working on the network. I did this by going into the settings and setting their default gateway to 192.168.3.1 and that they would give off the IP addresses instead of the Windstream box. This appeared to work fine for a few months. Until we gave them more bandwidth so that they could use their Remote Services faster. Now there are intermittent connectivity issues, Outlook disconnects, Remote Desktop constantly kicks users out, and internet is slow (not sure if that is part of the problem). I have tried changing the Netgear Router Gateway to something other than 192.168.3.1 but that never works.

Our ISP Windstream does not like to help us set up other devices on their network. They are useless to me here. They did however note, that there have been some IP conflict issues, which may have to do with the 192.168.3.1 gateway. Netgear said it was impossible to what I am hoping to achieve. I really don't think it is the case, and that the Indian script reader on the other end just didn't understand the technical side of what I wanted to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciate because I am banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why something so simple should be so hard to achieve. Basically I want to be able to login to the netgear router as I go to 192.168.3.X. X being whatever number the router is statically assigned. As of this point I can only access the netgear router login by going to 192.168.1.1. Every other configuration goes to page cannot be displayed.

Again thanks for any expertise you guys can throw my way.

If I understand what you're trying to do, set the wireless routers up on the main 191.168.3.x network, and run ethernet to the main router from their LAN, not WAN, ports. You may have to use a crossover type wire. It's the main router that will do all the DHCP work. The secondary routers are functioning as a wireless switch. See Quick Guide to Configure Wireless Router as Access Point

paul1149 said:

If I understand what you're trying to do, set the wireless routers up on the main 191.168.3.x network, and run ethernet to the main router from their LAN, not WAN, ports. You may have to use a crossover type wire. It's the main router that will do all the DHCP work. The secondary routers are functioning as a wireless switch. See Quick Guide to Configure Wireless Router as Access Point

Thank you for the suggestion. Since I have never heard of that cable before. I am sure that the netgear and windstream people probably never heard of it either. Seems pretty obscure.

I have the router from Windstream in the basement. As a test I can keep one wireless router down there connect the crossover directly to Winstream router and then see what type of signal I get after I put the

What about the connection issues would the wire solve that problem?

Right now I have two Netgear routers. So the Winstream box is downstairs, one Netgear on first floor and another on the second floor. Are you telling me I would have to re-wire first and second floor with crossover wires just to achieve this?

NOTE: I do know and understand that there are wifi extenders on the market. Not sure how reliable they would be in the building.

I don't know if the wire type is the issue. Some routers auto-detect lan-lan now. I would start first with the basic configuration changes (same subnets, lan-to-lan). If that doesn't work I would try the crossover wire. But I think you were going wan-to-lan, having two routers in series, both with full routing (dhcp) authority. I suspect that's the root of your throughput problems. Of course that situation wouldn't use a crossover wire, but the setup is not terribly stable, AISI.

paul1149 said:

I don't know if the wire type is the issue. Some routers auto-detect lan-lan now. I would start first with the basic configuration changes (same subnets, lan-to-lan). If that doesn't work I would try the crossover wire. But I think you were going wan-to-lan, having two routers in series, both with full routing (dhcp) authority. I suspect that's the root of your throughput problems. Of course that situation wouldn't use a crossover wire, but the setup is not terribly stable, AISI.

wan-lan is the only way everything works automatically, but the IP Addresses for wireless devices only are .1.x and the rest of the network-shares/scanning are not accessible. lan-lan works on the network but I am never able to login to the router and the default gateway for all routers revert to 3.1. Even if I change one router to 3.2 I can't login and whatever computers are on that network router loses connection because they are no longer 3.1

Even with all wireless devices turned off and unplugged I still get random disconnects mostly from the 3.1 gateway

It is possibly because a conflict with several DHCP servers running when lan-lan that causes the disconnects.

So try:
- plug the wireless routers to the lan ports of your main router (lan to lan, normal cable)
- disable both DHCP servers on the wireless routers.
- set LAN IP of wireless routers to one that is in the main router network ID but outside of DHCP scope.

So example would be:
- Main router:
-- IP: 192.168.3.1
-- DHCP: 192.168.3.10-100 (default gateway: 192.168.3.1/DNS: 3.1 etc)
- Wireless #1: (connect LAN port 1 to LAN port 1 of main router)
-- IP: 192.168.3.2
-- DHCP: off
- Wireless #2: (connect LAN port 1 to LAN port 2 of main router)
-- IP: 192.168.3.3
-- DHCP: off

Hopefully this will work.

GokAy said:

It is possibly because a conflict with several DHCP servers running when lan-lan that causes the disconnects.

So try:
- plug the wireless routers to the lan ports of your main router (lan to lan, normal cable)
- disable both DHCP servers on the wireless routers.
- set LAN IP of wireless routers to one that is in the main router network ID but outside of DHCP scope.

So example would be:
- Main router:
-- IP: 192.168.3.1
-- DHCP: 192.168.3.10-100 (default gateway: 192.168.3.1/DNS: 3.1 etc)
- Wireless #1: (connect LAN port 1 to LAN port 1 of main router)
-- IP: 192.168.3.2
-- DHCP: off
- Wireless #2: (connect LAN port 1 to LAN port 2 of main router)
-- IP: 192.168.3.3
-- DHCP: off

Hopefully this will work.

You know I did have my ISP exclude IPs 3.126-254 from the scope. Since 125 has a static printer on it. I guess I didn't think about turning DHCP off on both wireless routers. I hope the issue is that simple. I will be back at that location sometime early next week and I will try it as you generously mapped out for me. Sometimes its easier to just visualize these things... So I will try IPs 127 and 128. for the routers and see if that works. Thank you for the suggestion!

GokAy said:

It is possibly because a conflict with several DHCP servers running when lan-lan that causes the disconnects.

So try:
- plug the wireless routers to the lan ports of your main router (lan to lan, normal cable)
- disable both DHCP servers on the wireless routers.
- set LAN IP of wireless routers to one that is in the main router network ID but outside of DHCP scope.

So example would be:
- Main router:
-- IP: 192.168.3.1
-- DHCP: 192.168.3.10-100 (default gateway: 192.168.3.1/DNS: 3.1 etc)
- Wireless #1: (connect LAN port 1 to LAN port 1 of main router)
-- IP: 192.168.3.2
-- DHCP: off
- Wireless #2: (connect LAN port 1 to LAN port 2 of main router)
-- IP: 192.168.3.3
-- DHCP: off

Hopefully this will work.

This was very clear and helped me out so much. That did the trick.