Using a Second Router for Better Wi-Fi Signal

So I bought that brand new wireless router at my favorite computer store only to find that the wifi signal is weak at the other side of my house. The box said 300 feet, but apparently walls and other interference in my house can greatly diminish the signal broadcast.

What To Do Now?

After relentless experimentation with wireless "extenders" or "repeaters", I have found that the best way to get signal on the other side of the house was to buy another router and connect the two via Ethernet cable. Repeaters bounce the signal from the router to the access points and are subject to "skip" or drop your connection. This is not acceptable, especially when you are using bandwidth intensive applications (Call of Duty 4, Left 4 Dead, etc.) that need solid connections. So my best option was to by another router, but this time I would get something less expensive. I decided to buy a Belkin 54g wireless router as my second router because it was more "wallet-friendly" than my Belkin N1. Brand loyalty to my first router was a good idea, as I was already familiar with the browser configuration interface.

How Did I Connect Them?

While my Belkin N1 router was at the south side of my house, I would need a 150 foot Ethernet cable to connect it to my Belkin 54g on the north side. I checked online for Category 5e Ethernet cable and I was upset to find that they only offered 100 and 300 feet. That would mean I would have to buy 300 feet worth of cable for $70.00. I also noticed Cables-To-Go offered a kit with 500 feet for $60.00. I figured I either buy the cable or make it myself. Since I had other broken cable in the house, I chose the kit so I could repair the broken cables. Believe it or not, making your own Ethernet is not difficult at all. The kit comes with the cable, crimper, Ethernet cable tester, Ethernet cable connectors for the ends, and diagram wire setup for before the crimp. So I stripped the cable, crimped the wire, ran it through the attic to each end, and connected it to each router. The wire was plugged into one of the four ports in the back of the initial router and the other end was plugged into the port that says "connection to modem". Now the new router will be able to distribute my internet to 4 additional ports, plus its own wireless radius. Now I have two separate access points, except they are on the same network.

Configuring The New Router

I plugged a computer (via Ethernet cable) into the new wireless router and logged into the configuration menu. I had to change the IP address to a new number so it didn't conflict with the initial router (ex. instead of 192.168.1.1, the new router will be 192.168.2.1). The new router will create a new "pool" of numbers (ex. 192.168.2.2-192.168.2.100) for the north side computers. I changed the wireless channel frequency to a different number than the initial router. Lastly, I setup the wireless security and I was gaming with a consistent, faster connection.