Alright, so my problem is that I have this ZyXEL PK5000Z that Qwest gave us as a modem, and it has built in wireless as well. When I saw that I was excited because I hated having two boxes anyway. However, after setting up the modem, I came to notice a lack of wireless-n, which even though it doesn't seem like a big deal, means that the antenna is too weak to reach all of my house. So I thought that this wouldn't be too much of a problem, I'd just hook up my old Linksys WRT160Nv2 which could reach through all of the house, and turn of the built in wireless of the modem. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to want to work that easily, as the internet works when connected with a wire to the modem, but not when connected to the router. Can anyone help me set this up?

TL;DR: How do I set up a wireless router in conjunction with a ZyXEL PK000Z?

EDIT: okay, so it seemed my problem was that I had the cable from the modem plugged into the WAN port of the router. Which still seems like it should be right to me, but I switched it to one of the four LAN ports and it works now.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 31 2011, 10:58 pm by omginbd.

It's hard to know where you've gone wrong, but:

1. Your WRT160Nv2 will need to be connected by wire to your ZyXEL PK000Z.
2. You should turn off the DHCP server (if any) on your WRT160Nv2 and turn on the DHCP server in ZyXEL PK000Z. You only want the IP addresses to be given out by your modem, not your wireless access point.

Confirm you've done those two things and we can take it from there.

Wouldn't you want to do the opposite? That is, disable services on the modem and just force it to do it's main job...

Yes, currently the WRT160Nv2 is plugged into the modem via Ethernet cable, and yes it is plugged into the "internet in" port on the wireless router. DHCP server is off on the router, but not the modem. However, I don't know what to set the static IP settings to in the setup page of the router.


This was my impression as well. I was thinking that the modem would only give out 1 ip address to the wireless router, then the router would manage ips by itself, as that is what people would connect to.

This topic can be locked now.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 31 2011, 10:58 pm by omginbd.

Right, I see you fixed it in the top description.

The WAN port on the access-point will be a separate layer 3 interface while the 4 switch ports will be on a common layer 2 interface. It should be possible, given the right finangling, to get it to work from the WAN port, but it's more hassle than it's worth if you can just use a switch port.

The reason to use DHCP on the quest modem is because all of your computers in the house must go through it to get to the internet. But if you use the wireless access point to give out DHCP IP addresses, a wired computer elsewhere in the network may not get an IP address because it was wired, not wireless.

In practice with a simple flat network, having the DHCP server on the wireless router should actually be fine (since DHCP works on broadcast messages that should reach everywhere in the network unless specifically designed not to). But logically the best place in your network for this to be, is on the modem. Also consider what you're more likely to replace: your wireless access point (buy a new one, add a new one), or your ISP modem?

My network is probably run by more separate devices than most home users. I have my DSL modem (in bridged mode, not routed NAT mode - had to call my ISP to get that configured) with my router plugged into it (using WAN port on router). My router has an 8-port 1 Gbps switch plugged into the LAN port (my router has 1 WAN, 1 LAN, and another port for another network connection, which I'm not currently using). The switch has a 5-port 1 Gbps switch on a 50 foot cable and an N wireless access point plugged into it. That N wireless access point has another N wireless access point linked to it with WDS client mode. The second N wireless access point has a 5-port 100 Mbps switch plugged in and is not configured to allow wireless clients to connect to it, since the coverage is already just fine around the house. It is there just to link that 5-port switch to the network without a cable.

In total, that is 1 DSL modem, 1 router, 3 switches, and 2 wireless access points.