I have two Nighthawk R8500s. The first one broke during a lightening storm (some-freaking-how), such that the ethernet input to the "Internet"-labeled LAN connection is broken. All the other functions of the router remain intact (this same storm broke my modem [CM600] too, in pretty much exactly the same way). I can connect things to it via LAN and WAN, but I just cannot connect the router itself to the internet, so it is useless as an internet router. I got another one though, and I was thinking that it would suck to have to get rid of a high-end router that mostly still works. Is it possible for me to connect the broke R8500 to the working R8500 wrielessly, so that I can still make use of both routers?
At first I was thinking about using the broken R8500 as a repeater. Is it possible to do this without having to connect the broken R8500 to the working R8500 via a LAN cable to the "Internet" slot? Is it possible to do it wirelessly, or by way of one of the the other Ethernet slots?
I also read about wireless bridging. I keep my desktop in a different room than my modem and router, so it would be acceptable to me to create a wireless bridge to the broken R8500 from the working R8500 and then just connect some things directly to the broken R8500. Is this a reasonable set up?
Can anyone direct me in setting something like this up?
