Here is how I added a 2nd router to my home wifi network. This allows me to connect my music PC and music server via Ethernet, sending the music files over Ethernet only when I listen to music on my main system, without using wifi bandwidth.
I have two Linksys/Cisco WRT-610N version 1 routers. You can get these pretty cheap on ebay these days, and for the money they work well (at least to me they do). With a little patience, I think you can get them for $20-30 each. About a year ago when I bought them, they were the most cost effective router I could find with the features I wanted. These routers have a 4 port gigabit Ethernet switch, and have two radios to support two wifi (SSID) networks.
I loaded the routers with dd wrt software. This gives you more flexibility to make changes. You need to do this twice.
Instructions here
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT610N Firmware for first load is here
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2010/08-12-10-r14929/broadcom/dd-wrt.v24_mega_wrt610n.bin?I have been using one router running this 14929 firmware for a while, but it does drop connections and cause my wife to reset her PC.
Before I made any updates to the router firmware, I made a backup of the router configuration file.
This firmware used to update:
http://desipro.de/ddwrt/K26/r18730/usb-ftp-samba3-dlna-nv32k-broadcom.bin from here
http://desipro.de/ddwrt/K26/ firmware thread for the wrt-610n here:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=159185&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=610n&start=90&sid=3aece9ede6b826cdeef81cc702bd17a5 After I updated my primary router, I restored the configuration file I had just made, and this restored all the settings I had installed, such as static IPs and wifi configuration, etc. After restoring the configuration, I just did a power reset, and the router was back up and running, just like before I started but it seems to be better now with this newer firmware.
After I had the 2nd router running with the 18730 firmware, I set them up for client bridging
FYI, there is a good table here showing the differences between different bridging options:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeating_Mode_Comparisons Bridging routers Instructions:
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/reuse-an-old-router-to-bridge-devices-to-your-wireless-network/ The only thing missing from the instructions was to do a power reset of the router after finishing the setup, and then it worked great.
Also, when you start, both routers are at an address of 192.168.1.1. I turned off my PC’s wifi, so it didn’t see the primary router. It was connected to the secondary router via Ethernet at this point. After you change the secondary routers IP address to something else, you can turn wifi back on. However, to test that bridging is working, you should just have an Ethernet connection to the secondary router, and wifi turned off on your PC. If you can access the internet like this, then bridging worked .
I got bridging working first on my primary wifi network (SSID). The 610 is a dual radio router, so it supports two wifi SSID’s. Everyone uses the primary SSID because its faster. After I got it working on that one, I setup the 2nd SSID on the primary router to use channel 8, and then setup client bridging on the 2nd router to use the 2nd SSID.
So now I have two routers, the 2nd one bridged to the primary router.
Then I connected my stereo stuff to this second router. It lets the stereo equipment get to the internet, but the music just stays within the little network made by the 2nd router.
