topic Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar in Archived Posts

Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

stringman_uk — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 16:10:52 GMT

I know I am jumping on an old post but....

.. I am have an ee smart hub as my primary and I am using a bb1 as my secondary.

My set up is as below. I know its far from perfect but anyway....

Smart hub on ground floor at front of house. approx 50mbs

Cat 6 running down to a power adaptor in basement level at front of house (which opens onto the back garden)

Other end of the power adaptor is in the summerhouse about 100ft up garden ( on a different ringmain) getting about 7mbs .

Cat 6 also comes out of dining room adaptor and goes to the bb1 which has been set up as below

1st connect the Secondary BB individually to your PC to do these 1st 6 steps below.
Set Broadband Type of Secondary BB = Fibre/Ethernet for a BB1 or Ethernet for a BB2 (untick the "Enable ADSL/Fibre auto sensing" 1st), under Basic Settings.
Set Protocol of Secondary BB = Bridging, under Basic Settings.
Set the Gateway IP Addy of the Secondary BB, under DHCP, to be diff from that of Primary BB but on same subnet, e.g. if Primary BB's is 192.168.1.1, make the Secondary BB's 192.168.1.2.
Disable DHCP on Secondary BB.
Disable NAT on Secondary BB.
Make the Wireless SSID & pwd of Secondary BB to be same as Primary BB (or you can play around with a separate WLAN).
Connect Primary BB LAN port to Secondary BB WAN port by Ethernet cable or PowerLines, as suggested in other reply.
Reserve the Secondary BB's Gateway IP Addy in the DHCP of the Primary BB.
You should not need to make any other changes to the Primary BB.

This covers the seating area in the garden about 20ft away from the bb and is giving around 30mbs.

So all good.

The only things I am un sure about are:

The server address range on the sh is 192.168.1.64 - 192.168.1. 253 as the bb is 192.168.1.1 I didnt make any changes.

I looked for a way to reserve the ip address on the SH but could not see the BB or anything with that address.

Finally on the BB the internet light is red is that normal?

I am sure its working ok as when i first set it up i had the SH labelled as network and the BB as network1 and made sure i was connect to it and still got on line.

Any help is appreciated

Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

XRaySpeX — Sat, 01 May 2021 14:46:34 GMT

@stringman_uk :

You should make the Gateway IP of the BB1 either within the DHCP range of the SH, e.g..192.168.1.64, or extend the DHCP range of the SH to include the existing Gateway IP of the BB1, i.e. 192.168.1.1. You should set in the SH's Network to "Always use this IP" for the BB1 (Step 9 of my Bridging method).
The BB1's Internet light should be Green. As it isn't providing the Net to your devices there but they are working I suspect they are connecting directly to the SH by WiFi. Hence their slow speeds.
You might find it better to base it on my Routing method To make a 2nd Brightbox as a Routing WAP on your LAN to the main Brightbox so there is no conflict of DHCP ranges of the 2 routers.

Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

stringman_uk — Sat, 01 May 2021 16:44:18 GMT

@XRaySpeX

Many thanks for the help.

Rather foolishly I jumped straight in.

Without changing the bb1 wireless name ( so the both have ssid of network) I then changed the bb1 ip address to 192.168.1.64..

I then tried to connect to the bb1 via wireless ( my dell doesnt have ethernet) but it came up with "refused to connect"

so i then changed range on the sh to start with 192.168.1.1.

But when i tried to connect to 192.168.1.1. it spits me out taking too long to connect.

so I am a big stumped at the moment.

Any ideas?

Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

XRaySpeX — Sat, 01 May 2021 17:34:57 GMT

@stringman_uk wrote:

so i then changed range on the sh to start with 192.168.1.1.

When you did this did you also change the Gateway IP of the BB1 back to 92.168.1.1? Did you also set "Always use this IP" for it back on the SH? Is the Internet light still Red?

Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

stringman_uk — Sat, 01 May 2021 17:52:26 GMT

@XRaySpeX

Sadly I couldnt even access it to do any changes

It feels like BB1 is set to 64 which isnt accessible and thus I cant get into it to change the address back.

Light is still red.

I am thinking of just factory resetting the the bb1 and then starting from what you suggested in your first reply

Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

stringman_uk — Sun, 02 May 2021 12:22:58 GMT

@XRaySpeX

Thanks for the info.

I have been putting in all the details from your post.

The only thing that I would like to confirm is :

Reserve the Secondary BB's IP Addy as 192.168.1.2 in the DHCP of the Primary BB.

as the secondary subnet was 192.168.10* i just wanted to confirm this wasnt a typo.

many many thanks

Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

stringman_uk — Sun, 02 May 2021 13:47:58 GMT

@XRaySpeX

Many many thanks for your help.

I followed the advice in your linked post.

It all works ( green lights and all) .

Speeds really drop off after about 5m , which is frustrating but I know its locking onto it as i renamed the network.

TBH all it will really be used for is to connect to an echo for music so all is good.

Thank you so much

Re: Re: Problems connecting a Brightbox (R) Wireless secondary to Brightbox 2 Primar

XRaySpeX — Sun, 02 May 2021 15:43:14 GMT

@stringman_uk : No it's not a typo. From the Primary's point of view all devices connected to it have IPs on the subnet 192.168.1.x & you reserve 1 of them for the Secondary router regardless of which DHCP range it itself is using.

Thanks! You're welcome 🙂 ! Glad I could be of assistance & it is now sorted.