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Forum Discussion
Limited WN2500RP Success - Help?
I have a Netgear N600 WiFi Range Extender (Model WN2500RP). I followed the setup instructions (with some minor variations not properly/completely documented in the January 2014 version of the Installation Guide). At a friend’s house (with a local Linksys WRT54G non-WPS wireless router), it installed with no problem and was totally functional.
However, when I followed the same process at my condo, it failed to install each time I attempted to set it up (yes, I reset it to factory defaults each time). The main difference at the condo is that the “router” equipment is housed somewhere unknown and serves about 30 condo units in the building. When my computer is near the condo window, the signal is excellent. All of the N600 setup steps were done while both the computer and the N600 were within 2 or 3 feet of the window. With the computer at that location, the internet connection is generally “excellent” - of course, I wouldn’t need the N600 if I left the computer sitting in the living room next to the window.
At the condo, the N600 “found” both 2.5GHz and 5GHz networks, but I suspect that there is only a 2.5GHz network for the building. The same thing happened at the friend’s house, but there, at the next screen, the 5GHz network vanished, whereas at the condo, it was present throughout the rest of the setup process. And the “Netgear Genie Smart Setup” process presented no apparent provision for deleting/rejecting the 5GHz network.
At the condo, I was able to proceed as far as the final setup step and it appeared that it was going to be successful. But when the system was finished its “identifying network” process, the new connection was listed as "Limited" and the message "No Internet" was displayed.
None of the troubleshooting steps suggested by Windows resolved the problem. In order to re-access the internet, it was necessary to disconnect the new “limited” connection (with an ISID of “MyNetwork_2GEXT” where "MyNetwork" is the ISID of the condo-provided network), and re-connect to the original/primary condo network (ISID "MyNetwork"). This re-established my previous in-the-window internet connection, which I’m stuck with until I can solve this problem.
Q1. Does anything jump out as to what might be preventing this setup to be successful?
Q2. Is there something additional that I need to do, based on this type of HOA-supplied wireless internet?
Q3. Does the N600 provide both a 2.5GHz and a 5GHz extension, even if there is only a 2.5GHz primary wireless network available to extend?
Q4. If the 5GHz extension is likely to be causing the problem, is it possible to delete it (or prevent it from initially being automatically created)?
Q5. Is it better to accept the setup’s default "Use existing security settings" and change them later (I tried both changing the settings and also leaving them to default to the existing – neither worked)?
Q6. If yes to Q5, can the settings (encryption keys and/or security encryption levels) be changed later?
Q4. Given that the Homeowner’s Association only uses WEP encryption, is the N600 capable of providing a higher level of security encryption (e.g. WPA2 or WPA-PSK) for the extended network (either during setup or later), or is it preferable to leave it as WEP?
Any and all suggestions (except move somewhere else) would be appreciated.
However, when I followed the same process at my condo, it failed to install each time I attempted to set it up (yes, I reset it to factory defaults each time). The main difference at the condo is that the “router” equipment is housed somewhere unknown and serves about 30 condo units in the building. When my computer is near the condo window, the signal is excellent. All of the N600 setup steps were done while both the computer and the N600 were within 2 or 3 feet of the window. With the computer at that location, the internet connection is generally “excellent” - of course, I wouldn’t need the N600 if I left the computer sitting in the living room next to the window.
At the condo, the N600 “found” both 2.5GHz and 5GHz networks, but I suspect that there is only a 2.5GHz network for the building. The same thing happened at the friend’s house, but there, at the next screen, the 5GHz network vanished, whereas at the condo, it was present throughout the rest of the setup process. And the “Netgear Genie Smart Setup” process presented no apparent provision for deleting/rejecting the 5GHz network.
At the condo, I was able to proceed as far as the final setup step and it appeared that it was going to be successful. But when the system was finished its “identifying network” process, the new connection was listed as "Limited" and the message "No Internet" was displayed.
None of the troubleshooting steps suggested by Windows resolved the problem. In order to re-access the internet, it was necessary to disconnect the new “limited” connection (with an ISID of “MyNetwork_2GEXT” where "MyNetwork" is the ISID of the condo-provided network), and re-connect to the original/primary condo network (ISID "MyNetwork"). This re-established my previous in-the-window internet connection, which I’m stuck with until I can solve this problem.
Q1. Does anything jump out as to what might be preventing this setup to be successful?
Q2. Is there something additional that I need to do, based on this type of HOA-supplied wireless internet?
Q3. Does the N600 provide both a 2.5GHz and a 5GHz extension, even if there is only a 2.5GHz primary wireless network available to extend?
Q4. If the 5GHz extension is likely to be causing the problem, is it possible to delete it (or prevent it from initially being automatically created)?
Q5. Is it better to accept the setup’s default "Use existing security settings" and change them later (I tried both changing the settings and also leaving them to default to the existing – neither worked)?
Q6. If yes to Q5, can the settings (encryption keys and/or security encryption levels) be changed later?
Q4. Given that the Homeowner’s Association only uses WEP encryption, is the N600 capable of providing a higher level of security encryption (e.g. WPA2 or WPA-PSK) for the extended network (either during setup or later), or is it preferable to leave it as WEP?
Any and all suggestions (except move somewhere else) would be appreciated.
1 Reply
- After several days with no suggestions, I kept digging on the net. I finally found a reference to WEP questions that someone else had answered on another forum. Maybe my experience (and success) will help someone else. Basically, it comes down to this: The Passphrase and the Key must be identical. And since Netgear wants them in hex format, you need to convert your primary wireless network's passphrase (encryption key) from Ascii to hex. I have a 13-character passphrase, so I used an online 26 hex converter and then pasted the converted Ascii 26-character string to both the Passphrase box AND to the key 1 box. I also had to change from the default 64 bit to 128 bit. Ultimately this worked and I'm running with an extended WEP network. And, the extended network actually displays one more bar that the primary network.
