connecting 2 routers wirelessly

is there a way to connect 2 routers wirelessly? we just bought a new netgear wpn824 router and we have an old linksys wrt54g router that i wanna make use of.

the netgear is upstairs and was wondering if i can setup the linksys downstairs and maybe boost the signal a little. just dont know how the 2 routers would be able to talk to each other. all other post i found, you had to physically connect the 2 routers with an ethernet cable.

 

I think it is possible to connect two routers wirelessly, but I'm not sure if your routers are capable of doing that. From what I've read, it is really easy to do as long as you have the right hardware. Your routers have to be capable of building a bridge.

Here is more info: http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/1563991

 

not sure if i understand the whole thing, but what im getting from article is that im gonna need to buy a wireless ethernet bridge (like Linksys WET11) to connect my 2nd router to the network? if thats the case then i probably wont do it since i dont want spend anymore money. just thought i could make use of the 2nd router.

 

2 routers is unnecessary and can potentially slow down your LAN traffic.

 

well i really just wanted to see if i could boost the signal downstairs. theres some dead spots in some area.

 

your better off getting some high gain antennas. I would have suggested an SRX router right off the bat instead of the netgear for better range.
edit: didn't realize that was the rangemax, don't think you can add high gain antennas to it. you can use a wireless bridge and then a wireless access point.

 

Your router has to support WDS as well. Then you can connect wirelessly, WDS = Wireless Distribution System

here this will help http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Distribution_System

 

ok i've been trying to mess with this still. as far as the router supporting WDS, do both of them need to support it? theres a firmware for linksys WRT54G that allows it to support WDS but i still cant seem to get the 2 routers talking.

 

You cannot connect the two without buying new hardware. Even if the Linksys supports bridge mode or wireless repeater mode (and I'm 99% sure it doesn't) you can't link it to your netgear. Linksys products only allow the linking of the same product, or close to it. For instance, if you have 2 WAP's and want to set them up in bridge mode, they need to be the same one, not two different brands, so WAP54G - WAP54G or WRT54G to WAP54G (the seccond one is my set-up)
So no, you cannot link them wirelessly w/o buying a wireless bridge or wireless Access Point (Linksys WAP54G).

 

Well oficial linksys firmware does not have a bridge function but for example DD-WRT does suport bridge and not only with similar hardware. In fact it does not matter at all-at least for linksys. I don't know about Netgear, but as for Linksys i am 100% sure.

 

With the DD-WRT firmware it doesn't...but otherwise it does. I have only used the hyperWAP/WRT firmware before, I have yet to try out the DD-WRT firmware.

 

but the main thing is that both routers have to support WDS? if so then im out of luck unless i can find a firmware for netgear that would allow it

 

For the netgear, I don't think there is any 3rd party firmware out there for it. (I may be wrong) But the reason why there is all this 3rd party firmware for the Linksys products is because every time linksys comes out w/ a new firmware version, they also release the GPL code for it, so people take that code, and customize it. I also think there are other problems that would prevent someone from putting 3rd party firmware on it as well.

Bottom line: Linksys is the only one that has 3rd party firmware. (to the best of my knowledge)

 

For the orignal question; to make a long story short: Probably not. In the end a wireless router is set up to send a wireless signal and not to recieve one.

There will almost undoubtedly have to be an adapter that will recieve the first wireless signal and then go into the second routers ethernet port.

After all that, if you do get it to work, please post back as to the results.