How to set up a access point as a repeater

Do you have a home, an office or a large area to be equipped with wifi network and you are having problems with wifi signal from a router that is not strong enough to reach across your area?

All you have to do is look for the fruit wifi access point that is unused and in good condition, and do configuration to change the function of the access point into a wifi repeater that will strengthen your wifi signal so it can reach the entire area.

Okay, I'll try to explain to you about this.


The following scenario to be generated

 Information of Main Router (Example) :

    Wireless Router Model : TL-WR841ND
    Wireless Router Firmware version 130314 or older
    LAN IP: 192.168.0.1
    SSID (Wireless Network Name): TL-WR841ND
    Wireless Security Mode: WPA-PSK
    Encryption Type: AES
    Passphrase: 12345678

Preparation :

• Make sure the Main Router is on the Internet and you got the necessary Information of it as above.
• Since the default mode of TL-WR700N/TL-WR702N is AP, the DHCP function on them is disabled by default. We have to manually assign an IP address as 192.168.0.X to the computer to match the default IP address (192.168.0.254) of the Repeater. Please click here for detailed instruction.
• Connect the computer to the TL-WR700N/TL-WR702N with an Ethernet cable.

 Step 1 Change the Working mode to Repeater.

1. Set a static IP as 192.168.0.X to your computer. If you do not know how to change it, please click here.
2. Open the Internet Explorer and type the IP address of the access point (Default is 192.168.0.254) into the address bar and then Press Enter:
   
3. Type the username and password into the boxes of the login page, the default username and password are both admin, then press Enter: 
   
4. On the Management page, click on Working Mode and choose Repeater mode. Then Save. Click OK to reboot.
   
   After reboot, the page will come back. If not, please refresh the page or enter http://192.168.0.254 on the browser.

Step 2 Configuration on Repeater (TP-LINK 11n AP): 

1. On the Management page, click Network. Please make sure the Repeater’s IP address is in the same IP segment with the Main Router and avoid the IP conflict. If the IP of the main router is also 192.168.0.254, which is the same to the repeater, we have to change the IP of the repeater to “192.168.0.250”. Then click Save.
   
2. Click Wireless -> Wireless Settings. Then click Survey. 
   
3. Find the Main Router’s SSID (Your Wireless Network Name) on the list, and then clicks Connect.
   
4. The page will go back to Wireless Settings -> Repeater, and the SSID and MAC of AP will be filled in the information of your main router.
   
   Then for the Security Options and Password, please enter the same info as your main router. Please confirm the Security Options and Password of your main router. Here we take WPA-PSK as an example. Select WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK, and input the password “12345678” in the Password field. Then click Save.
5. Then there will a notice “The change of wireless config will not take effect until the Router reboots, please click here to reboot.” Please click there and go to reboot the repeater.

After you go through all the above steps, the Repeater should get working properly with the Main Router.


If the computer is still connected to the Repeater with the cable, you can check the connectivity by using Ping on that computer. Click on Start -> Run, type in cmd. Then OK.

On the black window, put in: ping + Space + the IP of your main router. Here, we put in: ping 192.168.0.1.

You may get “Sent = 4, Receive = 4, Lost = 0”, which indicates the repeater is working fine.  To enable the PC to access the Internet, please change the IP address of your PC to Obtain IP Address/DNS server automatically.

 If the Ping is not successful, please check all above settings carefully