NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Point to Point bridge problems
im having issues with point to point bridging a wndap350 and wndap360.
background:
we have a very long house, with lots of stuff apparently blocking wifi. ive been using a wndap350 for access on one end of the house, and a wpn824 for access on different channel etc. at the other end (with the two units connected by ethernet). the coverage works fine, but the wpn824 radio portion dies periodically, about once a month or so. i used to have a wnr854 but that radio died almost once a week, so we tossed it.
to alleviate this issue, i decided to add a wndap360, and bridge it to the wndap350, to allow 802.11gn and 802.11an throughout the house. this gives me the option of locating the wndap360 upstairs, where it is impossible to route ethernet. then the height should give us pretty good coverage in the house.
problem
i bridged using 2.4 gzh, and it seemed to work fine, but laptop drops the connection to the an/5gz radio, something it didnt do before adding the wndap360. i wasnt sure if i needed to also bridge using 5gz, so i bridged the 5gzh also and that crashed the system.
the reason i tried linking both was to ensure i had both 2.4 and 5ghz signals thoughout the house, since it kept disconnecting.
i did make sure the ssids/password/channels were the same on both units for both bands.
and i read all the posted materials in the stickys, but none addressed this issue.
questions;
1) from my testing, i assume you only bridge the units with a single protocol, and then the other protocol will be sharable? but im not sure about this, because when bridging there is an option "Enable Wireless Client Association". maybe this isnt necessary on the non bridged radio?
2) when rogue ap detection was enabled on 5gz the computer disconnected periodically, even though i have the latest laptop/wifi card (lenovo t420s with intel centrino ultimate-n 6300 agn). perhaps this is firmware problems, i dont know. any ideas here?
3) would i be better off bridging using 802.11An? or does it really matter all that much.
thanks.
background:
we have a very long house, with lots of stuff apparently blocking wifi. ive been using a wndap350 for access on one end of the house, and a wpn824 for access on different channel etc. at the other end (with the two units connected by ethernet). the coverage works fine, but the wpn824 radio portion dies periodically, about once a month or so. i used to have a wnr854 but that radio died almost once a week, so we tossed it.
to alleviate this issue, i decided to add a wndap360, and bridge it to the wndap350, to allow 802.11gn and 802.11an throughout the house. this gives me the option of locating the wndap360 upstairs, where it is impossible to route ethernet. then the height should give us pretty good coverage in the house.
problem
i bridged using 2.4 gzh, and it seemed to work fine, but laptop drops the connection to the an/5gz radio, something it didnt do before adding the wndap360. i wasnt sure if i needed to also bridge using 5gz, so i bridged the 5gzh also and that crashed the system.
the reason i tried linking both was to ensure i had both 2.4 and 5ghz signals thoughout the house, since it kept disconnecting.
i did make sure the ssids/password/channels were the same on both units for both bands.
and i read all the posted materials in the stickys, but none addressed this issue.
questions;
1) from my testing, i assume you only bridge the units with a single protocol, and then the other protocol will be sharable? but im not sure about this, because when bridging there is an option "Enable Wireless Client Association". maybe this isnt necessary on the non bridged radio?
2) when rogue ap detection was enabled on 5gz the computer disconnected periodically, even though i have the latest laptop/wifi card (lenovo t420s with intel centrino ultimate-n 6300 agn). perhaps this is firmware problems, i dont know. any ideas here?
3) would i be better off bridging using 802.11An? or does it really matter all that much.
thanks.
4 Replies
- First question - are you bridging or repeating?
Second question - what "protocol" are you referring to. fordem wrote: First question - are you bridging or repeating?
Second question - what "protocol" are you referring to.
im bridging - i only have 2 units, and from what i understand, repeating is for more than 2, but i might not understand repeating correctly. but my intention is for laptops etc. to be able to connect to either access point seamlessly, without having to change any settings etc or any drop in service. depending where this 2nd/new unit ends up being physically deployed, i may not have any need for the bridge (ethernet) function though.
protocol - i meant bridging with either/or/both 2.4gz or 5gz. i could have been clearer on that point. i am currently bridging with 2.4gz; when i also turn on 5gh bridging something goes wrong, and the network pretty much stops functioning.- You can bridge &/or repeat with two units - it's about what you're trying to achieve rather than how many units you have.
Imagine two road networks one on the left bank of a river and the other on the right bank of the river, and you wish to allow road traffic to flow as if it were one network - you can achieve this by building a bridge across the river.
In the same way, you can have two physically separated data networks - for the sake of discussion in two different buildings - and link them so that data flows by using a wireless bridge between the networks.
If you have two networks with a single bridge, that will be a point-to-point bridge - if you have three networks, you can either use two point-to-point bridges, or you can go point-to-multipoint, and so on and so forth.
Repeating is where the second access point receives the signal from the first access point and rebroadcasts it - you can have as many repeaters as you wish, within reason - each repeater hop causes a 50% drop in throughput.
It's important to understand what you're trying to do, because that will determine how you configure your access points - and unless I'm mistaken you're trying to repeat whilst configuring for bridging. - thanks for the explanation.
at this point, im just trying to repeat. but if the coverage works out, and the signal is stable with decent speeds, i do want to bridge to an area not accessible by ethernet (no way to pull ethernet, so i can use powerline only, and its pretty slow). but wifi coverage is priority #1.
i did configure it as a bridge with that in mind, although nothing is currently connected to the ethernet port. i did this to move the unit around a bit to find if there were any better/worse spots for coverage - didnt even know there was an option to repeat, as the only example netgear used in the configuration manual said "repeating the wireless signal. In this mode, the wireless access point does not function as an access point for clients but..." "In this mode, wireless clients cannot associate with the wireless access point.' so i figured that wouldnt work for me.
