NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Set up AC1750 Smart WiFi Router as print server
I know it's overkill. But I just installed an ASUS Mesh WiFi system and now have an extra AC1750 Smart WiFi Router (6400). I would like to set it up to work on the mesh network as a print server, sin...
freeassociates wrote:
To be clear, I am looking to have this all on my main WiFi mesh network so that the R6400 is connected wirelessly.
Aha. That's a very different story from anything you have said so far.
Your original message said " Smart WiFi Router as print server". You didn't say how you wanted to connect the R6400 to the Asus router.
The easiest way is to do what I suggested, put the R6400 into AP mode and plug it into the Asus router.
What you now describe is wifi to wifi connection. That would mean putting the R6400 into wifi bridge (repeater) mode. That's a much more complicated move.
To do that, check the manual for the R6400 and read the section Set Up the Router in Bridge Mode.
It isn't easy, and might not even work with your anonymous router.
Your first message said "I would like to set it up to work on the mesh network as a print server".
Is there any reason why you can't plug the R6400 into the router? It would be there on the network for everything else. It would also be a lot easier to set up and manage.
freeassociates wrote:
But even though I have reset it to the factory settings twice, neither my computer’s browser nor the Nighthawk app on my phone can find it.
Every time you reset the R7800 you put it back into router mode, which means that it will clash with the ASUS router.
To get the R7800 into AP mode, connect it to a PC. Go to the browser graphical user interface (GUI) and put it into AP mode.
How do I change my NETGEAR router to AP mode? | Answer | NETGEAR Support
Now, turn off the R7800. Get the rest of the network running with the Asus router.
Now, with the R7800 still turned off, plug it into the router. Turn on the R7800 and let it go through the set up cycle.
DO NOT RESET THE R7800.
If you want to get into its GUI, look at the Asus router and its list of attached devices. That should show you the IP address of the R7800. Feed that into the browser and you should be able to get into the GUI.
You can make life easier by fixing the IP address of the R7800, either in its settings or by reserving it on the router.
As you can tell, I know very little about how this works.
To be clear, I am looking to have this all on my main WiFi mesh network so that the R6400 is connected wirelessly. It won't be connected by ethernet, only via the WiFi signal. So I want it to receive data from the computers connected to our house-wide mesh network and send that data to the printer.
I have set it to AP mode. I have restarted it, then plugged it into the primary router. It was recognized in that setup and assigned an IP address, which I was able to use to access the GUI.
Now it is no longer plugged in via Ethernet.
It still shows up on the ASUS network and I can see its IP address there. (There is one called "R6400" and one called "NETGEAR" with adjacent IP addresses -- one number apart. Not sure why.) However, via WiFi, I can no longer connect to it via my browser. Not sure if that's expected or not.
I do see another WiFi network that the R6400 displayed as it was being set up ("NETGEAR55-5G") and can connect to that but it has no internet connection. Although my printer appears (sort of) when I'm connected to that network, communication doesn't appear to work. The printer is in the list of available printers to add, but I can't actually add it. I get an error that my computer can't communicate with the printer.
I'm really not sure what do from here. Can I actually set this up so that the R6400 gets signals from within the main WiFi mesh network and sends them to my printer? Or is what I'm trying to impossible?
This worked perfectly for years when I was using an Apple Airport Extreme (very old WiFi router) as a print server on my non-mesh WiFi network.
Thanks for your help.
freeassociates wrote:
To be clear, I am looking to have this all on my main WiFi mesh network so that the R6400 is connected wirelessly.
Aha. That's a very different story from anything you have said so far.
Your original message said " Smart WiFi Router as print server". You didn't say how you wanted to connect the R6400 to the Asus router.
The easiest way is to do what I suggested, put the R6400 into AP mode and plug it into the Asus router.
What you now describe is wifi to wifi connection. That would mean putting the R6400 into wifi bridge (repeater) mode. That's a much more complicated move.
To do that, check the manual for the R6400 and read the section Set Up the Router in Bridge Mode.
It isn't easy, and might not even work with your anonymous router.
Your first message said "I would like to set it up to work on the mesh network as a print server".
Is there any reason why you can't plug the R6400 into the router? It would be there on the network for everything else. It would also be a lot easier to set up and manage.
Yes. The printer and the main WiFi router are nowhere near each other. And neither is next to my computer, though I do have an ethernet connection to the whole network there. So I would like to find a way to make the WiFi connection work for this. I'll check out the bridge setup instructions.
The frustrating thing for me is that the Apple Airport Extreme was SO easy to set up this way. Maybe I'll have to get something like that. Or a new printer with its own WiFi connection.Okay, it worked. Sort of. My computer sees the printer on the network. I was able to set it up on my Mac (install it) and send a file to it.
But the printer only prints the first 2 lines of the text file I used to test it (figured I'd start with something simple) then seems to hang. I have the R6400 configured to use 5G WiFi as opposed to 2.4 G... think that has anything to do with it?
Meanwhile, I'll try testing the printer separately.
So close....