Two routers in-line?

[Radboy]

Have a friend with several desktop PCs, 1 laptop (Centrino-equipped), all connecting to Cable internet via wired router (Linksys).

They wanted to buy a router which supports both wired and wireless pors but screwed up and bought only a Wireless router. They want to connect wireless to the laptop.

Can they plug the wireless router into one of the wired ports on the wired router, or will that cause some kind of quirky problem?

I know they should return the wireless router and get one that offers both types of ports, but for the time being, I'm wondering about how they might connect the laptop wirelessly.

All WXP. The laptop can connect to one of the wired ports now.

 

[Fushigi]

It should work fine. I don't even think you'll need to configure anything too special. Just make sure the wireless router doesn't try to log in to the ISP (if a login is required); let the wired router do it.

 

[Mercutio]

It does work. We do it in my office because comcast wants to charge us per port we use on the router/access device they provided.

The obvious caveat is that you might need to change the address range for one router or the other. Most of them seem to use 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x by default, so you might have to switch to 10.something or 172.16.something.

 

[sechs]

I basically have three routers chained together. My DSL modem acts as a single-port router. Attached to that is my regular wired router with the desktop computers and print server. Attached to that is the wireless router, which also has four wired ports.

As pointed out, the key is to set everything up on appropriate IPs. My modem and wired router are on different subnets, while the wireless router is set to a unique IP and pass DHCP on to the wired router.

 

[Radboy]

Okay, thank-you kindly. I'll see what I can do. I have never done this before.

 

[Radboy]

Just a little follow-up. I went over their house to check on the wireless router, and discovered that it contained a yellow sticker that said "Don't install this untill you read the instructions". Behind this yellow sticker were 4 wired ports. The unit is a Belkin model 54g. I took the manual hme with me to read up on. There is a Quick installatin guide and a 100-page manual. Pretty snazzy-looking router.