Any one expert with routers/modems please help ?

[Gooner90]

Ok, so to sum it up, im just cuious of what is wrong here. I live in an appartment and i will describe how i have my net set up. I have a LINKSYS E2500 Wifi Router in my Hall which is connected directly to the fibre optics box given by my service provider (Etisalat, UAE). And I have connected that router through ethernet to an Apple Airport Extreme in my room. Because the Linksys' range was toooooo weak and wouldnt reach my room. Now the thing is, everytime a gadget (laptop/ps4/ps3/mobile) is connected to the Airport Extreme, i lose wifi connection with my Linksys. Devices (phones/ipads) can detect the Linksys wifi but cannot connect to it. But there seems to be no problem with the PC connected by ethernet to the linksys.

And the only way i can get my phones connect to the linksys is by restarting the router. The main thing is, I dont think its the problem with the Linksys because i've tried several main routers like DLink/ Huawei etc but the problem is still the same.

Can anyone explain to me what might be the problem? Im not an expert in networking/technical terms so please reply like you are talking to a newbie. I have tried stuff like replacing ethernet cables.

Thanks
I guess im getting really good support and answers ... but as i mentioned im a rookie with networking/technical terms. If there is any video on youtube that i can watch and follow that will help me with the issue, it would be great.THANKS!!

[Fester Frump]

i'm not super familiar with the airport extreme, but as i understand it, i'ts a router too.

Connect the linksys router to a "lan" port on the airport extreme. the "internet or wan" port of airport extreme is not used in this scenario.

On the airport extreme disable DHCP.

edit - essentially what you are doing is configuring the airport extreme to function as an access point only. Both the linksys and airport extreme are router/switch/access point combo devices. Your network only needs one router.

On the linksys router, the DHCP address table should, by default, be setup something like 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.29 are unused addresses and the first IP address the router will provide is 192.168.1.30. On the airport extreme configure it to have a static IP address that is from the unused address space, i.e. 192.168.1.2.

Power everything off, power everything back up starting the modem, then the linksys, then the airport. Give it a couple minutes between powering each one up for the previous device to complete it's boot process. Once the network is up, then start powering up your devices.

[GTB]

The issue is based on how you configured and wired the Apple Airport Extreme device.

Note that both the Linksys Router (LR) and the Apple Airport Extreme Router (AR) are routers. Each has a WAN or Internet (whichever name the maker likes to call it) and few LAN ports. Being both are routers they have the ability to do NAT (network access translation, DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol), and they have to be on different subnets and most of this is enabled right out of the box.

I do not know how you configured it but this is what you should do:

1. On LR, note the router IP address (probably something like 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1; the subnet mask (most likely 255.255.255.0) the DHCP pool range (number of IP addresses in the pool, where it starts, where it ends), and the DHCP lease lifetime. Connect a wired cat5 connection from pc to LR LAN port. On LR, make sure you have some IP addresses not in the DHCP pool (let's say you have 20 devices you want to connect; I suggest you give yourself 50 addresses in the DHCP pool and use 192.168.1.100 - 192.168.1.150 if you are using the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet. Change the DHCP life time to 12 hours. Change the wireless channel from auto to manual and select channel 1. Save the settings. Note the wireless configuration (encryption type, ssid, preshare key, etc).

2. Connect the cat 5 wired cable to AR Lan port next and log onto AR. Disable DHCP entirely. Change wireless channel to channel 11. Change wireless settings to be the same as it is for the LR except for channel number. Change IP address to static, and I suggest using 192.168.1.2 if LR is 192.168.1.1. Save settings.

3. Now connect a CAT5 cable from LAN port of LR to a LAN (not WAN or Internet) port of AR. Power down both LR and AR for at least 3 minutes. Turn on LR and at least 3 minutes later turn on AR. At this time you can connect wired and wireless devices. Make sure any LAN devices with static LAN IP addresses are revised to accommodate the retirement of the AR subnet. Now configure wireless devices to use the SSID, encryption type. preshare key, etc of LR and make sure it connects while in LR range. Once successful, walk to the AR range and it should connect and all devices should communicate to each other as you are now on same subnet and have one DHCP server.