Virgin media have sent me a new fangled combined cable modem and router. My current modem is in the corner of my office, whilst my wifi router is under my desk in the other corner, there is a long cable ran round the room connecting them.

My wifi router under my desk has my mac mini, nas, printer and a power line adaptor connected. Obviously, the new router can’t go here, as the virgin cable isn’t long enough.

Can I plug my new router in, then use the Ethernet cable supplying the old wifi router to supply a signal, and then use the old wifi router as a kind of switch?

If not, how do I keep the new set up that I have working?

TALK TO ME IN THICKO TALK PLEASE. NOT TECH TALK. IM A BIT DENSE

Your new modem is probably a wifi router so everything that is wireless will talk to it, anything that is not will need a cable.

The problem I’ve got is everything on my desk, other than my mac needs plugging in. My work laptop also needs to be synced whilst plugged in every now and then.

Yeah, what Drac said.

Without knowing specifics it’s hard to be sure but, I suspect you could just plug the old cable router directly into an Ethernet port on the new one. Out of the box though, you might end up with two wireless networks, so you might want to disable one.

Logistics of your room aside, the new box will be intended to replace both of the old ones. You shouldn’t need the old router; however from the sounds of things, you might be better off keeping it in this case.

I think.

If I could get the new box under my desk, id be sorted. Can you extend the cable that virgin use for their cable modems?

How is the Virgin signal presented, is it an F-connector (like a screw-in coax) or an Ethernet jack or something? I don’t know as I’ve actually seen one in years.

It’s like a co ax type cable, with a screw in connector.

F-connectors then, yeah. You’ll be looking at something like this I expect.

I’m assuming you don’t get TV over the same wire?

Not In my office we don’t. Not really sure of the ins and outs.

Would a switch work better, or does it mean that the wired in stuff on my desk runs slowly?

If it’s combined then you presumably have some ethernet ports in the back of it for devices to plug into? I’d imagine it also takes care of the wifi for you.

If that’s the case then just get yourself a cheap hub, throw out your old router and replace it with the hub, then plug your laptop etc into the hub. Something like this should do it. It’s not the cheapest but they’re reliable and robust.

Wiring stuff through a switch will make it go faster than over wireless. The one I linked above runs at 1Gbps which should be more than adequate for what you want.

Cheers peeps.

This is all in the name of Sir Richard and Usain Bolt giving me 60MB Broadband.

I don’t need 60MB Broadband!

get yourself a cheap hub

“Hub” is a specific term and best avoided. You mean “switch.”

The router the OP has is also a switch already. Don’t really see a need to be buying more gear.

Wiring stuff through a switch will make it go faster than over wireless

Yup.

Cheers Peeps

“Hub” is a specific term and best avoided. You mean “switch.”

Pedant!

The router the OP has is also a switch already. Don’t really see a need to be buying more gear.

Because as per the OP it’s across the other side of the room from everything that needs to be plugged into it.

Sure you can run 4 long ethernet cables round the room but my preference would be hub/switch and a single cable. Also, it doesn’t sound like the OP is technically minded so presumably doesn’t work in the kind of place where he could liberate 4 long ethernet cables which would mean buying stuff anyway (albeit cheaper than a switch)

Get these

Plug one in to your router and the other where you need it, saves messing with a long cable.

I’ve got power line plugs running my Internet TV’s and blu ray player

I’d still need some kind of switch under my desk too.

Pedant!

Not at all. If he buys a hub, it’ll be the Wrong Thing.

Because as per the OP it’s across the other side of the room from everything that needs to be plugged into it.

Sure you can run 4 long ethernet cables

Either I’m misunderstanding this or you are? You can just run a single cable from the new router (at the wall) to the old one (under the desk). Ie, the existing router is also a switch; replacing this with another switch achieves nothing. Unless you’ve spotted something I’ve overlooked.

Why not ask Virgin to extend the original coax, that way you can use your new combi router/modem in place of your current router.

After all, it’s not your fault they have started to supply combi router/modems.

Why not ask Virgin

You’ve never tried their customer services, have you? 🙂

I’m quite happy with the switch and cable method, I was just wondering if my old router would work as the switch.

Paul, I believe I have a long extender cable in the attic, how long would you need?

Warton, thanks for that. I’ve just ordered a switch thingy, but cheers.

If he buys a hub, it’ll be the Wrong Thing.

Can you even actually buy a hub these days? Search Amazon for hub and you get a bunch of switches.

Either I’m misunderstanding this or you are? You can just run a single cable from the new router (at the wall) to the old one (under the desk).

Me I think. Yep, you could use the old router but will need to disable the wifi, DHCP, etc if you don’t want it to clash with the new one. I was assuming the OP wanted the simplest solution without needing to do much re-configuration. For me this would be an unmanaged switch (/hub), however I agree with the others that an extender cable would probably be the best way to go, then you just need to worry about one device.

Edit to add: Just noticed you mentioned you might need to plug in laptop etc at times also, I’m assuming the Virgin modem/router has just 4 ethernet ports, so at least if you’ve ordered a switch you’ll have additional ports.

Can you even actually buy a hub these days? Search Amazon for hub and you get a bunch of switches.

Good point, well made.

I was assuming the OP wanted the simplest solution without needing to do much re-configuration

… and again.

(-:

Hi the fancy Virgin wifi router can be converted to just a modem in the advanced settings, via the configuration page. Then you can treat it all like the last set-up.
The first page with the three icons on it has advanced settings under them. Next page has modem mode at the bottom of the left column. Enable this and away you go.

Right!

I forgot I had a switch behind my TV for TV and BluRay from powerline adaptor.

I’ve installed the Virgin Superhub, spent ages faffing with settings to get wifi working. I’ve had to turn off the firewall and IP Flood detection, as well as changing 802.11 setting to upto 145mbs. None of which I understand!

My Mac Mini is connected by ethernet and is working fine, my wireless kit is now getting about 30mbs, but my Zyxel NSA221 nas can’t be accessed now, when it does access, I can’t get past the menu screen, after which it times out, this is by typing it’s ip address in firefox. It’s no longer showing as a shared device in finder on my mac

Any ideas before I bin all of this kit?

I’d reboot the nas if you haven’t already – is it connected via Ethernet too and configured for dhcp?

The new router might be handing out ips on a different address range and causing problems.

Sorry my point probably didn’t come across in that previous post – was typing on my phone so I’ve jogged upstairs to do the job properly.

First thing that popped in to my head is that you have assigned a static IP to your NAS, and this is on a different address range (E.g. 192.168.1.* rather than 192.168.0.*).

Obviously this is pure speculation. Try getting the IP of a device which you’ve connected wirelessly and see if the first 3 dot-seperated numbers are the same as the one you expect the NAS to have.

Have you now got two DHCP servers running?

I only have the superhub and an unmanaged switch running.

I seem to remember the drive having a static address, ending in .19 I can’t get in to access it now though, gah!

Give your PC a static on the same subnet temporarily, if you remember what it was.

Or, plug the old DHCP device in instead of the SH temporarily.

OK, well if the NAS has a static IP, and it’s on a different subnet to the new IP range of the superhub, it wont work – so you need to change the IP. I’m unsure about whether changing the superhub IP, or the NAS IP is a better idea. If you don’t know the IP of the old router it might be easier to change the NAS, on the other hand if you get anything wrong changing the IP on the superhub there is always the handy factory reset button on the back…

Here is how I’d go about changing the NAS IP:

First write down the IP address of the mac mini when plugged in to the new superhub (Not sure how to do that on a mac but it’s probably in system information somewhere).

Then turn on the old router and plug the mac mini and NAS into it (Don’t plug anything else in) – They should now be on the same subnet and (Hopefully) The NAS will show up again in the finder. Bear in mind that the mac wont have an internet connection now so you’ll be alone unless you have another machine somewhere which can connect wirelessly to the superhub.

Now navigate to the NAS in firefox again (It should come up this time hopefully) and change the static IP of the NAS through the web interface. When you wrote down the mac mini address at the beginning you want the new address of the NAS to have the same first 3 numbers, and something different at the end (I’d probably keep it as .19 if that’s what it was before). Click save, and it might want to reboot.

Now you should be able to plug the NAS and mac back into the superhub and everything *should* work.

Good luck 🙂

Drive has an IP address of http://192.168.1.19/playzone,/

Router is at http://192.168.0.1/home.asp

does this mean that there is a difference?

Yeah thats no good – you may be able to change the superhub IP to 192.168.1.1. Which might be easier than what I said above but I’ve not used a superhub and I remember having trouble changing the IP of a Virgin router in the past (This was probably just a one off though and was a while ago).

If you do that, remember to change the DHCP range so that it is 192.168.1.20 – 192.168.1.255 (Not 192.168.0.1 – 192.168.0.255) or something similar. I’d start it from 20 so it doesn’t try to hand out the same IP as the NAS.

EDIT:

If you change the NAS:

Changing the NAS IP is made slightly easier now because we know the new IP address. Just set it to 192.168.0.19.

EDIT AGAIN:

So to clarify: Plug the mac and the NAS into the old router, go to 192.168.1.19 in your browser on the mac, change the IP address to 192.168.0.19 in the config. Click save and reboot. Then plug them both into the new superhub and all should be OK.

FINAL EDIT:

And sorry for making this tremendously unclear – I recently failed a job interview largely for being unable to speak to people about things like this without making it sound very complicated 😛

Mended!

Cheers all

Just an update for you all.

The superhub is gash, wireless network now doesn’t reach my bedside cabinet, so I keep losing connection when I’m trying to go online with my iPhone, meanining I hav to get up and do some work.

The router I had a net gear wgr614 can be used as an access point of some sort, I now have it behinnd my tv in the lounge with a LAN cable from a power line adaptor to one of the LAN ports, my Blu Ray and Tv are both connected to it to, the router is also broadcasting the old network name, so anything that drops out of the new router range is picking that up. I can access my network drive on both networks, so I assume it’s all working ok at present.

I turned of DHCP, and gave the router a new static ip address.

Are there any tweaks you lot would recommend? I’d like them both to broadcast as one network, but I’m not sure that is possible.

Is this likely to give me any issues?

Lads?!?

Put it into brige mode, it will learn an address from the upstream device assuming it has a dhcp helper. This will men it is all on the same subnets an thus will appear like a flat network. There will be a setting for it via the http conole

Will I have to change the ssid so that theyre the same?

paulosoxo,

You will need to make the wireless settings identical – so same ssid, and same password/security settings. The only difference should be the channel it is broadcast on. Try channel 11 on one router and channel 6 on the other.

You changed the superhub to 145Mbps, was there a reason for this? I would put it back up to 300Mbps which should/may improve the range.