How to Connect Two Routers on One Home Network
You may wonder why anyone might want to do this, but it's not that uncommon to connect two routers on one home network. One reason for using two routers is to allow additional computers to access the Internet. You may have two hard wire routers simply to double the number of available ports to connect additional computers. Or you may have two wireless routers bouncing signals across a greater distance. You can also have one wireless and one hard wire router, which is the example used in this article. The second router basically acts as a glorified switch to increase the number of ports.
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Instructions
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Decide which router will be your primary router, which we will call Router A. Hook up Router A, as usual. Connect the WAN port with a cable to the modem. The two routers don't need to be identical models or brands. Refer to the package instructions or consult a professional for details.
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Connect the computers that will be using Router A to the LAN ports using regular network cables.
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Configure the home network. If you need help, follow the instructions or consult a professional. Configure both wireless and hard wire settings. When you are finished, test the computers to make sure that you're able to access the Internet.
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Add a second router. Connect a regular network cable to one of the LAN ports on Router A. Plug in the other end of the cable to one of the LAN ports on Router B.
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Hook up the computers that will be using Router B to the LAN ports using regular network cables. You should now have Internet access on all computers on the network. If each router has four ports and they are pigtailed with a LAN cable, then six computers could be included on the home network (two of the ports are used up with the pigtail between the two routers). If one or both routers are wireless, then you could connect even more computers.
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References
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Comments
View all 12 Comments-
incomplete information
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You have to turn off DHCP on the second router (router B) or you will get IP conflicts, two computers fighting over the same internal IP. And both the A and B routers can't both be a gateway both can't use 192.168.1.1 at the same time either only router A can be the gateway.
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Lacks a serious amount of detail.
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there are settings to change too. like changing dhcp in the 2nd router. It's just a bad idea in the first place.
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cheers, helpful.
