Turn Your Old Router into a Range-Boosting Wi-Fi Repeater
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If you're upgrading to a faster, stronger wireless router, don't chuck your older Wi-Fi box. With the magic of DD-WRT, you can turn your older wireless router into a range-expanding Wi-Fi repeater to cover everywhere you need a connection.
The advent of wireless home networks grew slowly in the past decade, but reached the point at which nearly every home with a high-speed connection had a wireless router that shared Wi-Fi connections throughout the home. Now Wireless N has become the standard at electronics retailers, promising faster connectivity with your wireless devices, faster transfer and streaming speeds between devices, and better connectivity. So what's to be done with your home's first wireless router?
Our suggestion is to install the open-source DD-WRT firmware on your router and turn it into a repeater for your main router, expanding your Wi-Fi signal to reach every nook and cranny of your house, and even into your backyard or garage, if needed. You'll be able to use the same password and security scheme, you won't need anything except a power outlet for the repeater when you're done, and most of your devices will automatically switch between the two signals when needed.
We've previously run down how to install DD-WRT on a Linksys router to give it many, many more features, including the repeater function we'll cover here. If you've already installed DD-WRT, then, skip to the section on repeater configuration. One notable difference in this guide, too, is that I'm installing a custom build of DD-WRT, the "micro" flavor, on a Linksys WRT54G ver. 6, or "version 6." Adam wrote his original guide in 2006, with a fully-DD-WRT-compatible Linksys WRT54GL router, and at that point, those who picked up a blue Linksys box without knowing about open-source firmware were pretty much stuck. Now there's a huge array of supported devices, and even my sadly restricted Linksys can run a Micro build, and Micro now includes a repeater function.
Update: A Note on Speed
Some intrepid bandwidth watchers, Will Smith among them, have pointed out that their own experiments with repeating signals has left them with slower connections. To be honest, I was using the repeater mostly for Google Reader in bed, and browsing and web working from outside the house, so I hadn't seen a noticeable drop in speed. A few tests at SpeedTest.net tell the tale. Pictured at left here is the result from my main router, a Buffalo model with Wireless N (detailed here), connecting from my upstairs office to the downstairs living room, then Buffalo, NY to Toronto, ON.
This result is through the modified Linksys WRT54G ver. 6 router about 10 feet away, connected as a repeater to the Buffalo router downstairs, and then tested again through Toronto. There is, as you can see, a download speed difference, and if I'd been using my Wireless N modem, it might be even more severe. So take a repeater for what it is—a slight trade-off in speed for a greater reach, with your mileage varying based on your hardware and connection. You might also note, though, that using SpeedTest's Android app, I actually received better download speeds from my office through the repeater than through the main router—for a smaller antenna, perhaps, connectivity can sometimes win over latency concerns.
What You'll Need
• Compatible router: Grab that old-but-still-works router and flip it over. Get the model number off the label, and write down the MAC address, while you're at it—the locations for both, on a standard Linksys "blue box," are pictured above. Type the first few characters of your model number into DD-WRT's router database, and look for your model to pop up. If you get any kind of green "Yes" listed with your model, you're in the clear—even the most pared-down DD-WRT build, micro, supports the repeater function.
• Firmware files for your router: In that same router database, click on the line that relates to your router model, then grab all the files listed there. You may not end up using all of them, but once you've taken your router offline, even if it's not your main router, you'll want to have all your files available offline.
• Print-out of your instructions: There's a good chance, if you've got a fairly popular router, that you'll have access to specific router model instructions on the DD-WRT wiki. You'll usually see a link on the same page as your firmware files; if not, go ahead and search the wiki. If you don't have a printer, or hate wasting paper, use a print-to-PDF tool like doPDF or the Nitro PDF Reader for Windows, or the built-in PDF functions in Mac or Linux. The reason, again, is that you want to be prepared in case you lose internet connectivity on one or more routers during the flash process.
• Ethernet cable & computer with Ethernet port: Enough cable to comfortably reach from your computer to the router you're working on, and a computer without any networking problems that you know of.
• A pen and paper: The paper for notes, and the pen for both writing and pressing and holding down the reset button on your router.
• At least an hour's time, and patience: Instructions for most routers are laid out in step-by-step detail, with very specific instructions. Even so, you do not want to rush things, or load the wrong file at the wrong time. Doing so opens the potential for a "bricked" router, one that doesn't work and can't be accessed or set back to its default, factory-fresh state. That's not going to happen to the patient, cautious firmware flasher, though.
