I am trying to use a Linksys WRE54G (v.3) Range Expander with my Z100G to improve reception for wireless devices on my property. I am a newbie to networking and I have been unsuccessful in all attempts.

The Linksys install software fails during the system survey and tells me to try again. I have tried various instruction found on the web. I have not been able to access the expander setup software via the default IP address (page not found). I know that one member here does or has used the two together successfully and I am hoping that ValleyDawg or someone else can give me tips on how to make this work.

Otherwise, if you could point me in the direction of another repeater/extender/expander devise that is easier to setup with the Z100G I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

Dell Dimension Desktop (LAN connection)
2.66 Ghz Pentium 4, 1.5GB RAM
XP Pro SP3 - auto upadated
Wireless Dell laptop w/VIsta (WLAN)
Wii (WLAN)
USB HP printer (USB port)
Z100G firmware 7.5.55x

Hi Varko...

Sounds like you are experiencing some of my initial frustrations. Try this...

1. Reset the unit before each setup attempt. These boxes take a long time for a reset to "take". Hold that little button in *at least* 60 seconds.

2. You *must* do the install from a computer that is logged into the wireless network you are trying to expand. From there, you should be able to do the setup from the CD. No need to log into the default IP... I couldn't make it work either.

2a. Totally ignore the printed instructions that came with the unit. They are confusing, incomplete, and mostly wrong. Do follow to the letter the instructions in the CD setup program... it does work.

3. Position the expander so its location forms an approximate equilateral triangle with the computer and router locations.

4. I had to turn off my Kaspersky Internet Security Suite to make the setup succeed... don't know how it reacts to other security software.

5. If everything is working OK, you should be able to see both the router and the expander in the site survey (also any other wireless networks in your area) Make sure you select the expander to set up (yup, I did that wrong once or twice :)

6. Once you get it working, both LEDs should be blue.

7. I've found these units to be pretty robust in service. They survive power outages and net shutdowns without any problems, but have to be set up again if you change network settings.

8. The Z100G does not count the expanders as nodes... only the computer(s) behind them. Smart!

That's all I can think of now. Please post your experience.

Good Luck!

ValleyDawg

First of all, ValleyDawg, thanks for your prompt and encouraging reply. It has been a busy week, but knowing that 'it can be done' inspired me to spend many hours on this. This has been an educational experience. With the help of my husband (together we know just enough to get into trouble) and my brother (over the phone - knows a bit more about networking and can often can get out of that trouble) it ends successfully. This shouldn't have been that difficult, but the official product documentation (both printed and online) is useless; various forum discussions abound, but tend to lack details, especially about the connection of the wireless device to the expander; and sometimes you get too focused on one issue that you lose sight of the other variables. In hindsight it all makes some sense now, but we chased our tails quite a bit.

Our stumbling block that we encountered more than once was security encryption. We could not get a successful site survey with the install CD due to encryption settings. It wasn't until we turned off the routers encryption AND used a computer with no encryptions settings that the site survey was successful. Now I had read this issue about encryption so I had tried several times to create a direct connection to the expander via the Ethernet connection, but didn't understand that I had to disable other network connections and set a static IP address of the computer in the range of the expander to be able to access the default address, 192.168.1.240, via a browser. Believe me, I understand and can do it in my sleep now. Anyway, then it was just another failed attempt to communicate and I didn't know enough to know why. So when we went back to the install CD the encryption issue was lost in the back of my head. After much time wasted, it crept back to the forefront and we disabled encryption on the router, but didn't think to do the same with the laptops - still no luck. Finally we set up a barebones XP desktop with a wireless USB fob and we were successful. Not realizing that the encryption settings on the laptops would delay us another couple of days from success because we couldn't see the problem clearly; other than the fact that the laptops wouldn't connect to the expander even after successfully setting up encryption for the expander and router. All the time we are thinking that the router wasn't treating the expander as an expander and that we must have some settings on one of them wrong. No matter how often we tried to make the laptops connect to the expander they would always fail and go back to the router. We didn't know if we had some sort of operating system (Vista) interference, but the same was happening with the XP laptop as well. It was a real puzzler. Finally this morning I made the breakthrough after going up my street with the laptop - out of range of the router, but still getting a signal from the expander - with the help of Vista's network connections diagnostics software I was able to find out that the encryption settings of the expander and the laptop were similar, but not the same and that was why it would not connect to the expander.

Needless to say there were a few lessons learned:

#1) before starting turn off or disable all encryption on all devices on the network. This ensures that when you do turn the encryption back on you are more likely to set all devices to the same settings. When making those settings be aware that WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK are not the same and that there is two different algorithms AES and TKIP.

#2) the install CD can work or you can use these updated instructions (for firmware version 3) I finally found to manually setup the expander:
wireless-driver.com pageThere is an older version of these instructions floating around the internet (i.e. at tomshardware.com), but they are out of date with version 3's encryption capabilities and the requirement for the SSID of the router's network and expander setting to be identical. They also lack any detail of how to do most of the steps - they assume you know much. The instructions at the link above are much better, but they are not perfect.

Step 1: It says to "hold down the reset button until you see the Link light turn steady red." This will never happen. As ValleyDawg suggested after it initializes hold it down for a minute (I did not test if less time would still work), then a few moments after you let go it should re-initialize ending with steady red over blue.

Step 2:C) When it says to change the expander's IP address to something in you LAN's IP range, they mean your WLAN's IP range.

Step3:B) The install CD did not do this and left the gateway all zeros. We manually changed it to our router's WLAN IP address. There were other issues causing problems at the time, so I do not know if this is necessary, but my brother seemed to feel it was.

Step 3:D) In other (older) documentation it says that the SSID of the router network and expander can be different. Here it specifically says the version 3 of the firmware requires them to be the same. From our experience this is true - the expander loses the link to the router if you change it.

In several spots the instructions talk of doing a power cycle after saving setting changes to the expander. We found that it would reboot itself and this really wasn't necessary, though I'm sure it couldn't hurt if you let it finish rebooting itself first to make sure it has plenty of time to save the changes.

Finally, Step 5 covers security setup. Pretty good advice here. One issue that bothered me was in steps A and B. It says to restore your security settings to the router first then the expander. Problem is you would lose access to the expander via the network if you changed the router first. Change the expander first - it will not establish a link after rebooting until you then setup up the router's setting to be compatible with the expander. The router seems to be very flexible and can communicate with several different encryption schemes at the same time (backwards compatibly?). The expander is more limited and more precise as we found out. The devises that talk to it must match the settings of the expander exactly.

The instructions give one more thing to consider before going through all this. I read similiar information on other sites, so I assume it is true:

"Also keep in mind that the actual throughput you get through the WRE54G will be less than half what you would get from a direct AP connection, even if your computer is right next to the WRE54G. That's because the repeating action performed by the WRE54G involves a single radio that has to both receive and retransmit. Still, a slower signal is better than none at all, as long as what you're doing with the connection doesn't depend on speed."

Thanks again for your support and I hope this will be helpful for anyone else tackling this project.