Photo : osde8info ( ( Flickr

It’s the most irritating scenario: You set up your router in your new house or apartment, and your wifi is working flawlessly, until you find your downloads (or streaming) screech to a halt in that area that’s just outside your router’s range—like the exact spot where you watch Apple TV on the couch, or stream music at your workbench, or binge movies in bed.


There are plenty of tricks you can use to squeak a little more range out of your existing equipment. If your networking gear is old, or you don’t want to deal with a lot of hassle, I normally recommend buying something new: a better router that supports the fastest wireless speeds your devices can handle, a wifi mesh system with a dedicated backhaul connection, or even a super-cheap wifi extender if you just need a bit more range for simpler tasks.



If you don’t feel like spending a penny more for your setup, you have an alternative: using an old router to extend (or build onto) your primary router’s wireless signal. You know the one—that trusty, retired workhorse you’ve kept around in case of emergency (or from laziness).


Instead of letting it collect more dust, you can repurpose the old router to help boost the range of your wireless network at home. This won’t be a perfect solution, especially if it’s some older wireless-n router that you’re trying to force into your newer wireless-ac world, but it can at least save you some cash and possibly give you better wireless performance than a simpler extender. Waste not, want not?

Option 1: A new access point

The best thing you can do with an old wifi router you’re no longer using is to convert it into a simple wireless access point. So long as your house or apartment is wired for Ethernet (or you don’t mind stringing cables), it’s an easy way to give an area wireless connectivity that doesn’t already have it (or has a weak signal).


To get started, connect your older router (WAN port) to your newer router (LAN port), and connect a device to your older router. Pull up your older router’s settings—more on how to do that here—and look around for some kind of “access point mode,” as it’s commonly called. Depending on the router, this might even be called “bridge mode,” which is a confusing term that we’ll address later in this article.

Screenshot : Netgear


What you’re trying to do is disable the router’s DHCP server—how connected devices receive an internal IP address from your router. If you don’t, you’re committing the networking sin of running a router inside a router, which might cause issues for whatever you’re doing on devices connected to your second router.

To note: Performing this step will change the IP address you use to access your router’s settings via your browser, if you went that route. You’ll also need to reset your router and switch the Ethernet cable from its WAN port to one of its LAN ports. To find your older router’s new IP address, pull up your newer router’s configuration and look for the section where your your router lists connected devices. Your older router should be one of them.


(You can also probably set your router’s IP address manually on its configuration screen, if you’d rather remember it that way.)

Place your router in a perfect place for wherever you’re planning to expand your wireless capabilities, assuming you have a long-enough Ethernet cable, or in-wall cabling.


It’s convenient to set up your old router’s wireless networks with the same SSID and password as your existing wireless networks. I like giving them different names than my existing wifi networks (same password), because then I can decide which access point to connect to—the newer router or the older router.

Why? Because your devices are probably stupid and cling to a lower-strength wireless signal for way too long, and your older router likely doesn’t support any features for bouncing devices with poor signals off the access point. Using separate SSIDs for your different routers means you’ll have to make sure you’re connected to the right wifi network if you’re moving around a lot between the two, but that’s a small issue to deal with for the performance benefits. You don’t want your device to cling to your older router’s so-so signal if your newer router’s faster wifi network is a better option (or vice versa).


Option 2: Use your router’s wireless repeater mode

Look through your router’s settings (or manual) to determine if it has some kind of “wireless repeater,” “extender,” or “bridge” mode—yes, it’s that bridge word again, which router manufacturers love to use to mean different things.


If you’re not sure if you’re selecting the correct mode or not, see if your older router’s manual (or the description of the feature within the router’s UI) indicates that this mode will allow your older router to connect to another router using its wireless signal. Most importantly, your older router will also need to be able to accept wireless connections from devices.

(Sometimes, when router manufacturers say “wireless bridge,” they mean connecting two routers together over wifi without allowing any other wireless clients to connect. In this scenario, any devices you connected to your older router via an Ethernet cable would join your larger network.)




Screenshot : Linksys

If you think about it, this setup replaces the Ethernet cable of the previous step—the one connecting your new router and your old router—with a wireless signal. This kind of a setup also comes with one important caveat: If you run your old router as a wifi extender, you’re going to cut your performance in half for connected devices. LearnTomato describes why:

“There is a downside to using a wireless bridge in repeater mode and WDS mode. If the secondary router retransmits the wireless signal (instead of connecting client computers with a wire), the wireless throughput in the secondary building will be cut in half. Each transmission is known as a “hop”. The second wireless hop is the one that takes the hit. [...] Basically, wireless clients connected to the second router will not enjoy the same performance as the wireless clients connected to the first router. Why? Because the transmitter in the second router has to do twice the work. It must first receive the signal from the primary router, and then retransmit the signal to wireless clients.”


This is why you’re always better off using an Ethernet connection, where possible, to connect access points to your primary router. A wireless bridge might be more convenient, but your speeds can suffer.


If your router isn’t an extender, make it one

There’s a good chance that your router, old (or cheap) as it is, doesn’t have any options built into its UI that allow you to use it as an access point or an extender. Resist the urge to drop this router in the recycling bin, because you still have a chance to bend it to your will. You’ll have to flash it with a third-party firmware—the software you’d interact with to change its settings—which can help you unlock features you couldn’t previously play with.


I like using DD-WRT myself, but you can also try OpenWRT or Tomato—or even AdvancedTomato, if you want a prettier GUI. You’ll have to do a little digging to see which firmware works with your specific router (if any), and know that you router might have different versions, too. (This is something you’ll probably cross-reference against each third-party firmware by consulting the label on the bottom or rear of your router.)

It’s important to get the right firmware, and the right version of that firmware, for your specific router, as flashing your router with incorrect firmware could cause a world of issues that might take a lot more time to fix. You can check support for your exact router here:


Since I’m practicing this on a TP-Link Archer C7, I decided to go with good ol’ DD-WRT. I started by looking at the bottom of my router to confirm that I had hardware version “v2, and I then downloaded the corresponding firmware (factory-to-ddwrt.bin) from DD-WRT’s site.

Screenshot : David Murphy ( ( DD-WRT


I then jumped into the regular web interface for the Archer C7—by typing in the typical 192.168.0.1 into my web browser—and navigated over to the section you’d normally use to update the router’s firmware with a new image from TP-Link. Instead, I selected the DD-WRT .BIN file I just downloaded, and let ‘er rip.

Screenshot : David Murphy


...and nothing happened.

Screenshot : David Murphy


As is sometimes the case, the firmware updating process didn’t accept the obviously-not-from-TP-Link image. If this happens to you, don’t give up. I hit up the DD-WRT forums, found the gigantic post for the Archer C7 router, and learned that I would probably have better luck flashing my router with the most recent DD-WRT beta, rather than what was listed in the site’s Router Database. I did that, and...success!

Screenshot : David Murphy


I then visited DD-WRT’s Wireless tab and looked for the “Wireless Mode” section for my router’s 2.4Ghz and 5GHz radios. I clicked the drop-down box and...again, nothing. No “repeater” mode to select. As it turns out, the Archer C7 uses a Qualcomm Atheros chip, and that doesn’t support “easy mode,” or the conventional repeater mode that you’d otherwise be able to select. Sigh.

Screenshot : David Murphy


If you find yourself in this boat, you still have options. This tutorial, though extensive, should be able to get your old router set up as a wifi extender. If you’re using a dual-band router, it’s even easier. Follow the steps to connect your old router to your new router via “client mode,” but don’t create a virtual interface. Use your router’s other radio in AP mode, instead—devices will connect to that, and your old router will use the other radio for the backhaul connection to your existing router.

Screenshot : David Murphy


At this point, you’re probably wishing you bit the bullet and just bought a cheap extender. I don’t blame you, but this is sort-of fun—and it’s a lot easier than I thought it would be, that’s for sure.


Let’s recap

If you’re not looking to spend money on upgrading your home wifi setup, you should consider using an older router to extend your wireless signal in your house. Every little bit helps. Keep these pointers in mind when you’re building your new Frankenstein-like networking setup:

Wherever possible, connect your older router to your existing network using Ethernet cable.

Don’t forget to disable your old router’s “routing” capabilities. If your older router has an “access point” mode, that makes this even easier.

Consider using different SSIDs for your old and new networks, so you can have more manual control over how your various devices connect.

You can also try setting your router up as a wireless extender, but you’ll take a performance hit.

If your router doesn’t come with a wireless extender mode by default, you might be able to flash it with third-party firmware to unlock the feature.


This story was originally published on 7/30/13 and was updated on 6/27/19 to provide updated information.