Using old router as a DIY wireless Access Point

If you are anything like me, you have probably been through your fair share of wireless routers. You may even have a collection of them growing in your storage room, if you haven't gotten around to selling them on the second hand market yet.

I recently moved into a new place and it is a relatively big three story town house. It is about 20 years old and has nice big thick concrete walls and they are just great for wireless networking... almost as great as a car with no wheels. I use a D-Link 802.11n Extreme wireless router for the first floor and it is great for using notebooks and other wireless devices, on the first floor. However once you start to venture past the second floor and onto the third floor, where we spend quite a bit of time, the D-Link router really struggles to provide a strong wireless radio signal in that part of the house. We are able to connect to the D-Link router from the third floor but the connection is flaky at best - it will connect for a while and then drop out without warning. Surfing the Internet feels like we are back on a ten year old 56k dial-up connection, even though, the main router is connected to an ADSL2 modem.

In this guide you will learn how to make very good use of an old wireless router which is otherwise sitting around doing nothing. You will learn how to turn it into a DIY wireless access point and save money in the process by not having to go out and buy a brand new wireless access point or wireless range extender, which will set you back $100 USD or more. I guess you could say it is an exercise in recycling old computer parts and that makes us feel pretty good about ourselves, but even better by not having to fork over cash on new products unnecessarily.

Let's get this guide underway and begin our journey in having a house with multiple wireless connections. It's not that hard, so don't be scared, go forth and head on over to the next page.