E4200 as an access point?

[SedoSan]

Hello all,
I'm living in a compound and they offer free internet on their own router.
I'm doing a small LAN between my machines (PC, Laptop, TVs, etc...) and to avoid sharing folders with other residents I've changed the ip address of my E4200 router and just made it an access point (or so I think it is).

The default gateway of the main compound router is 192.168.1.100
this router has a DHCP server on from 101~200, I set my E4200 router internet connection type to static IP and put 192.168.1.150
Then I made the E4200 router address to 192.168.2.1 and made its own DHCP server from 192.168.2.2~30 with subnet mask 255.255.255.224

But i've been having problems like sudden network disrupts every 5 minutes or less which starts to get really annoying later. I can't even watch 20 seconds of a youtube video without getting interrupted! I called the technician but he was out of the city, but he told me there might be an interference between another router and the main router, is my router causing this problem?
Since there are other residents in the building, someone might have another router that is not setup properly. But I can't make sure if it is from me or not, am I doing something wrong?

here is a simple sketch of how it looks like:

Regards,
SedoSan

 

[devnull]

Did you give your router a reserved DHCP address on the compound router or only set the E4200 WAN to static?

If you only set your WAN IP to static, you should change the IP address to something outside the compound DHCP range. If someone else happens to get the same IP address as your router, it can cause a problem like you describe.

Also it was unnecessary to give yourself such a small subnet on the E4200 LAN, but it should work all the same.

 

[stevech]

From the drawing, you do not have an AP. The WAN port of your router is given the static IP of 192.168.1.150 to be a member of the "compound" LAN. You show that the compound's router is 192.168.1.100. That .100 is not a normal choice for the gateway address; it's usually x.x.x.1 or x.x.x.254. Need to sort this out. The .100 is a common address within the DHCP range on the LAN side.

Your router's LAN side should be in 192.168.x.y, where x is not one, so let's say x=2.

The above then yields a new subnet 192.168.2.x for your use. It's a double-NAT arrangement, since the WAN side of your router does NOT have a public IP address.

You can change this to be an AP since you have a wired connection to the 192.168.1.x LAN subnet, per your drawing.

I don't think you can or should do an AP, because APs are typically in the same subnet as its router, which in your case is 192.168.1.x. If you owned the router, you could do an AP, but you don't.

Here's what I'd try, keeping the double-NAT.
Change your router's WAN side (ISP) setting from static to DHCP. That way, you'll get a non-conflicting address from the main compound router.
Setup your own router's LAN side to use a subnet of 192.168.2.x. Your DHCP server would be enabled for a portion of the addresses in 192.168.2.x. Your router's address (for admin purposes) would be an address like 192.168.2.1 or .254 or some such that cannot conflict with your own DHCP server. The WAN side gateway will be set automatically by DHCP to the compound server.

The compound's gateway address would typically be 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254 or some such, or maybe it's in 192.168.0.x. But with DHCP enabled on your WAN port (ISP), you don't care what that address is, but your own should be in a different subnet to keep you from getting confused.

==========

Now... your WiFi should have a different SSID than the compound's SSID. And your client devices should NOT have the compound's SSID in their list of OK SSIDs. This will force your clients' WiFi to choose only your WiFi.

 

[SedoSan]

From the drawing, you do not have an AP. The WAN port of your router is given the static IP of 192.168.1.150 to be a member of the "compound" LAN. You show that the compound's router is 192.168.1.100. That .100 is not a normal choice for the gateway address; it's usually x.x.x.1 or x.x.x.254. Need to sort this out. The .100 is a common address within the DHCP range on the LAN side.

Your router's LAN side should be in 192.168.x.y, where x is not one, so let's say x=2.

The above then yields a new subnet 192.168.2.x for your use. It's a double-NAT arrangement, since the WAN side of your router does NOT have a public IP address.

You can change this to be an AP since you have a wired connection to the 192.168.1.x LAN subnet, per your drawing.

I don't think you can or should do an AP, because APs are typically in the same subnet as its router, which in your case is 192.168.1.x. If you owned the router, you could do an AP, but you don't.

Here's what I'd try, keeping the double-NAT.
Change your router's WAN side (ISP) setting from static to DHCP. That way, you'll get a non-conflicting address from the main compound router.
Setup your own router's LAN side to use a subnet of 192.168.2.x. Your DHCP server would be enabled for a portion of the addresses in 192.168.2.x. Your router's address (for admin purposes) would be an address like 192.168.2.1 or .254 or some such that cannot conflict with your own DHCP server. The WAN side gateway will be set automatically by DHCP to the compound server.

The compound's gateway address would typically be 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254 or some such, or maybe it's in 192.168.0.x. But with DHCP enabled on your WAN port (ISP), you don't care what that address is, but your own should be in a different subnet to keep you from getting confused.

==========

Now... your WiFi should have a different SSID than the compound's SSID. And your client devices should NOT have the compound's SSID in their list of OK SSIDs. This will force your clients' WiFi to choose only your WiFi.

ok, I kinda have access to the main router, since they have a username and password of admin,admin... So I can change in it a bit,
so you would say I make the compound router address 192.168.1.1, then make the DHCP from .1.100-200?
Then I change my E4200 address to DHCP? (the problem with this is that it might get a different IP often and I will lose my double NAT settings, unless I reserve the DHCP from the compound routher, hmm),
Then give the E4200 router a subnet address of 192.168.2.1 (which i'm already doing), and give it a DHCP range from .2.100~200?

I'm not home right now so I will try this once I get back, but did I get it right?