Adding an AP to RT-AC3200

[roldogg]

I've been running my RT-AC3200 with Merlin's firmware for a while, and I've never had any problems. But, my youngest daughter just moved into her own bedroom on the opposite side of the house where there's a very weak wireless signal. I have a Netgear R7000 flashed with DD-WRT, and I'd like to set it up as an AP hard wired into my RT-AC3200.

In the bedroom next to her's, I have a Netgear managed switch with CAT6 running to it. I have quite a few devices hooked up to the switch but have 2 unused ports that I could hook it up to.

To do this correctly, would I only need to set a static IP for the AP, disable DHCP, the firmware also has an option for DHCP forwarding. After I setup the AP, enable the port on the switch, and hook it up, are there any settings on my primary router, the RT-AC3200, that I would need to change? Under the LAN settings on the RT-AC3200, it has a route Tab which reads "This function allows you to add routing rules into RT-AC3200. It is useful if you connect several routers behind RT-AC3200 to share the same connection to the Internet."

It asks for the Network/Host ID, Netmask, Gateway, Metric, and Interface. Am I supposed to input the info from the AP here or do I need to make any changes in the settings for the RT-AC3200? I setup the static IP of the AP in the DHCP section under manually assigned IP around the DHCP list, but I'm just wondering if I'm missing something or if any other changes need to be made so my network won't have any conflicts. I work from home so I need to have a solid running network.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Puppa]

Reduce the DHCP address range (e.g. 1-100 vs 1-253) and manually assign the address of the access point outside that range instead of assigning a static value in dhcp. When the router is under load (not necessarily heavy) some bug or design decision makes DHCP server super laggy. As a result, your AP will barf periodically. If you use manual IP, you can sidestep this problem. It's a tad inconvenient, but not as bad as midnight twiddling every night or so. I speak from personal experience. Doesn't matter whether you run stock or Merlin: both exhibit the issue.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

[roldogg]

Ok, good. That's how I currently have it set. I set DHCP on my primary router for 1.16-1.253 so I can use 2-15 for static IPs. If I have too many issues, I guess I could set a manual IP for everything since the new firmware asks if you want to link a MAC address with an IP address.