New Life For Old Tech: Nix Dead Zones With This Easy WiFi Boost

WiFi is awesome! …when it’s working. These days everybody with home Internet service also has WiFi, and most Internet service providers included a WiFi router with installation. So what do you do with your old perfectly working WiFi router? Put it in a drawer? Dispose of it (responsible of course)? Give it to that geek friend or family member. Well I AM that geek friend/family member! I often find myself with a pile of perfectly good WiFi routers just sitting around doing nothing.

A lot of the routers the ISPs provide are not the greatest in terms of signal strength. This leads to dead zones in your WiFi coverage. In this week’s video I will show you how to revive one of these old WiFi routers and use it to extend the wireless coverage in your home.

So if you already have one or two of these old things sitting around and you have some issues with your WiFi coverage you can try this quick and easy solution. It works for me.

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And now a step by step of how you can revive and set up your old WiFi router. Of course things will changes based on what old tech you have available.
Problem:
I have a WiFi dead zone in my home office.
Solution:
Re-purppose an old WiFi router and use it as an access point.

What you need:

Hardware:
One old WiFi router. In this example I’m using a Netgear WGR614v8
One Ethernet cable.

Information:
Information about your router. Get the model number off of the back of it and search the Internet for the user’s manual if you don’t have it already.

The IP address of your current router. Usually it is 192.168.1.1 or 10.1.10.1.

1. Step 1: If you do not know your router’s user name and password then you’ll need to reset it to the factory defaults. Normally there is a small button on the back that you press and hold for 10 – 20 seconds with the tip of a pen or some other small pointy object. You can get this information from the user’s manual.
2. Step 2: Turn it on and connect your PC to the router’s WiFi. Scan for the default WiFi network name. In my case it is NETGEAR.
3. Step 3: When connected to the router proceed to the router’s setup page via your web browser. The instructions for my old Netgear router has me enter http://www.routerlogon.com the the default user name admin and default password password.
4. Step 4: Once in the setup page there are two things we need to look for. The first is the dhcp server settings. Locate the the dhcp server function in the router and turn this feature off. The existing router on the network already does this.
5. Step 5: The second is and the LAN IP Address. Locate the area in the settngs to set the IP address of the router. I got lucky and found it on the same page as the dhcp server.
   The default adress needs to be changed. The default address is most likely either 192.168.1.1 or 10.1.10.1. And your original router is most likely also set to either 192.168.1.1 or 10.1.10.1. Having the same address on the same network will cause all sorts of weird problems. Change the address to another address that starts with the same numbers as your original network (the subnet) 192.168.1 . Lets pick 192.168.1.2. My network’s router is 10.1.10.1. So I’m going to pick 10.1.10.5 for my example.
   After those two settings are changed you can click the save or apply button depending on your router’s settings page.
6. Step 6: Grab your ethernet cable and plug one end into your first router and the other into one of the LAN ports of your newly added router. Make sure you do not plug anything into the WAN port. WAN goes to the Internet. Our original router is still doing that job.
   Disconnect then reconnect to the WiFi of your new router. Congrats! you’ve just added a new Internet enabled WiFi access point. Since your new router is now also connected to your oringinal network via the ethernet cable you can even reach the Internet.
7. Step 7: It is best to set the WiFi name and security the same way as your first router to make your WiFi coverage seamless. Log into the settings of the newly added router and set up the WiFi security to use the same SSID , security, and password as your other router. Now you can roam your home and enjoy a strong signal everywhere.

Thanks for visiting and be sure to subscribe and leave comments!

Steph and Aaron