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This thing works fine, unless I have to change something. Recently changed my router, so needed to re-do setup on the range extender. I was only able to access the admin page via the IP address, 192.168.1.250. Configured for the new router, no problem. Now I want to update the FW. Can't connect to the admin pages. I tried everything in the support article, nothing worked. Not via wireless, nor with an Ethernet cable connected.
So I did a factory reset. Then I could get in. Ran through the setup wizard. On the last page after connecting my devices to the extender WiFi network, the wizard tries to connect to a "success" page. This fails, and now I am unable to get to the admin pages at all. What a piece of junk. And since the device is out of warranty, apparently NetGear won't talk to me unless I pay some ridiculous $89.95 fee.
How do I connect to the admin page so I can update the firmware and change other settings?
Hey thanks S for the reply. I'm sure you can tell I'm frustrated.
I'm not sure I buy your explanation. The extender will get an IP on the "router side" from the router, yes. But it doles out its own IPs on the "extender" side network. The router doesn't have to "forward on" traffic to mywifiext.n*t, because that traffic doesn't get to the router without going through the extender first, which is supposed to detect it and show the admin page.
My "router" is an iPhone 6 running as a hotspot. Now before you shake your head and blame that screwy setup (it's the best Internet I can get here in the sticks), it's been running fine that way for literally years on an iPhone 5c. I upgraded my main cell phone from the 6 and pressed the 6 into Internet gateway duty.
I don't believe there is any way to see precisely what devices are connected to an iPhone, only the quantity of connected devices. So that's no help.
Last night I took another crack at it. Powered off the extender, turned off wifi on the PC and turned it off. Powered up the extender, waited for it to boot. It connected to the iPhone hotspot. Connected a cable from the PC to the extender Ethernet port, and turned on the PC. Then I went to the kitchen and poured myself a beer to give everything some time to get composed.
When I got back, I opened Chrome and had no problem connecting to the admin page, updating firmware, and completing the configuration. I connected via mywifiext.n*t, but could see it was using the default 192.168.1.250 IP address. This is a different range from that assigned to the router by the iPhone.
In any case it's done, and this PC is now on WiFi to the extender, which is connected to the iPhone 6 and from there the Internet.
BUT - when I'm on WiFi I can't get back to the extender admin page. Luckily I don't expect to have to very often, and when I do I can use the trick with the cable. Therefore I still maintain that the extender software is crap. Netgear should either make it work reliably over WiFi, or eliminate that feature and require a cabled connection for admin. Or at least document some additional solutions like the one that worked for me. None of these scenarios seem likely though.
Log into your router and look at its attached devices page or whatever the version your router has.
Once the extender is setup with the router, the router assigns an IP address to the extender and also controls how traffic is routed. So the default IP address won't be the assigned address and the router might not be forwarding on the mywifiext address.
Once you've logged into your router's attached devices page, it should list what address it assigned to the extender and you should be able to use this to access it.
Sadly, for extenders, a lot depends on the router. You can have the best extender in the world but its dependant on the router and can only be as good/functional as the router is.
Hey thanks S for the reply. I'm sure you can tell I'm frustrated.
I'm not sure I buy your explanation. The extender will get an IP on the "router side" from the router, yes. But it doles out its own IPs on the "extender" side network. The router doesn't have to "forward on" traffic to mywifiext.n*t, because that traffic doesn't get to the router without going through the extender first, which is supposed to detect it and show the admin page.
My "router" is an iPhone 6 running as a hotspot. Now before you shake your head and blame that screwy setup (it's the best Internet I can get here in the sticks), it's been running fine that way for literally years on an iPhone 5c. I upgraded my main cell phone from the 6 and pressed the 6 into Internet gateway duty.
I don't believe there is any way to see precisely what devices are connected to an iPhone, only the quantity of connected devices. So that's no help.
Last night I took another crack at it. Powered off the extender, turned off wifi on the PC and turned it off. Powered up the extender, waited for it to boot. It connected to the iPhone hotspot. Connected a cable from the PC to the extender Ethernet port, and turned on the PC. Then I went to the kitchen and poured myself a beer to give everything some time to get composed.
When I got back, I opened Chrome and had no problem connecting to the admin page, updating firmware, and completing the configuration. I connected via mywifiext.n*t, but could see it was using the default 192.168.1.250 IP address. This is a different range from that assigned to the router by the iPhone.
In any case it's done, and this PC is now on WiFi to the extender, which is connected to the iPhone 6 and from there the Internet.
BUT - when I'm on WiFi I can't get back to the extender admin page. Luckily I don't expect to have to very often, and when I do I can use the trick with the cable. Therefore I still maintain that the extender software is crap. Netgear should either make it work reliably over WiFi, or eliminate that feature and require a cabled connection for admin. Or at least document some additional solutions like the one that worked for me. None of these scenarios seem likely though.
