Airport extreme as wired access point for D-link router

Question

Airport extreme as wired access point for D-link router

I am using a Dlink DIR 655 wireless router in my house, mainly because I found the range for it to be superior to that of the Extreme base station that I also have. The extreme is just sitting in a drawer, which got me to thinking I could improve my range even further by using it as an access point. Unfortunately, the Dlink does not support WDS, so using the extreme as a wireless access point (or range extender) does not seem to be possible. [Not certain about the access point, actually, but as a range extender it definatley does not work with the 655. But in the Setup utility for the Dlink, I can see that eh Extrrme does connect to the Dlink]. However, I could easily wire a Cat-5 cable in my crawl space and put the Extreme at the other end of the house.

So my reading tells me I have to put the extreme into a certain "mode" to do this, but in looking through the menus in Airport Setup, I am not really sure what to do. Could anyone provide me fairly specific instrucitons about how to do this. It would be much appreciated.

thanks!

Posted on Sep 10, 2011 10:42 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Sep 10, 2011 10:46 PM in response to Gregory Kinney

I think you will find that Airport Extreme Base Stations and/or Airport Expresses will not play well with non-Apple routers and vice-versa.

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 10, 2011 10:48 PM in response to Gregory Kinney

Look at the thread below.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2356261?

I followed these tips and now have an Airport Extreme and Airport Express working as additonal access points (directly connected to my Netgear Router). You need to set your Airport to bridge mode (so it does not allocate IP addresses).

I don't realy understand how this all works, but follwed the thread and got it working. Also went to the Apple Store and spoke to them and 2 of the employees pretty much suggested the same thing.

Hope this helps.

Reply

Answer 3

Sep 22, 2011 10:00 AM in response to AndrewC1970

Thanks for that. I finally had a chance to get it hooked up, and it appears to work, BUT, the weird thing is that one of my computers appears to be selecting the furthest (Apple) network to connect to. That is to say, the Airport definitely extends the range - I get a much better signal at that end of the house now - but when at the other end, my laptop still trys to connect to that network, getting a very weak signal and cutting out, even thought the dlink is 10 feet away...

that just seems wierd to me....

Reply