Use RT-AC66U as access point WITHOUT AP mode?

[notwebsafe]

Hi,

I recently bought two RT-AC66Us, intending to use one as my main router and the other as an access point (via a wired connection to the main router). I set things up using AP mode on the secondary router, and it seemed to work. However, our iPhones would often have serious connection degradation to the second router - the signal strength was fine but packets just wouldn't get through, or would get through slowly. In the router log I noticed a lot of entries saying "received packet with own address as source address", and from reading these forums it sounds like this is just a general problem with AP mode on these routers that would need a fix from ASUS. Kind of terrible that this hasn't been fixed by now.

So I thought I would try not using AP mode, and just setting up the second router as an access point the way I had with previous routers - in its normal router mode, by just setting a static IP address outside the main router's DHCP range (and turning off DHCP on the second router). However, when I try to do this, the LAN settings don't have a field for entering the default gateway, so the router can't connect to the Internet.

Is there any way to set up the secondary RT-AC66U as an access point without using AP mode? If not, I might have to find a different router...

Thanks,

nj

 

[notwebsafe]

(Alternatively, is there some way to set it up so the second router is actually on a different subnet - perhaps having it bridge to the main router using the WAN port instead of the LAN port? I'm guessing that the "own address as source address" issue is somehow related to a device jumping between the two routers and them confusing each other because they're on the same subnet...so perhaps they should be on different subnets? I've never set up a network that way though.)

 

[Hawk]

(Alternatively, is there some way to set it up so the second router is actually on a different subnet - perhaps having it bridge to the main router using the WAN port instead of the LAN port? I'm guessing that the "own address as source address" issue is somehow related to a device jumping between the two routers and them confusing each other because they're on the same subnet...so perhaps they should be on different subnets? I've never set up a network that way though.)

This is not true when device connect they look at BSSID or mac address of router, first time they connect they connect with stronger signal.

I would update firmware to latest and then do factory reset and see if it helps. "received packet with own address as source address" should go away for me at least did. However I have RT-AC68U, but I also got on those quite while back but no more.