On 29 Jul 2006 15:59:00 -0700, vphilomin@googlemail.com wrote:
: Hi,
: I have a Belkin F5D7230-4 wireless router and I am trying to set it up
: in my house with CAT 5 outlets in several rooms (one outlet per room).
: My dsl modem is in the basement and is connected to the CAT5
: infrastructure in the house. The Belkin has a single WAN and several
: LAN ports and I want to place it in my office room. Since I have just
: one CAT5 outlet in this room, if I connect the outlet to the WAN port
: of the Belkin, then my wireless devices work fine. But a wired device
: connected directly to the CAT5 outlet in another room won't work since
: it is not connected to the LAN part of the Belkin router. I tried to
: connect the LAN port of the Belkin to the wall outlet in the office and
: then tried to use another network cable to connect the WAN port of the
: Belkin directly to one of the remaining LAN ports of the Belkin. This
: way, the Belkin can reach the dsl modem as well other computers on my
: CAT5 infrastructure. However, this doesn't seem to work either and I
: have routing problems and intermittent connections from some of my
: desktops (connected to the CAT5 outlets in other rooms) that are unable
: to reach the Belkin router with a ping all the time. I think this is a
: routing problem overall since the Belkin router uses the same LAN and
: WAN mac addresses. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me the
: best way to set up the Belkin router. All of my computers run windows
: xp.
: Thanks,
: Vasi

Since you only have one wired outlet in your office, you've gotta put a router
in the basement and plug the wires to all your CAT5 outlets into it. That
router doesn't have to be wireless, but can be. (It does have to have a DHCP
server.) If you're lucky enough to be able to see the wireless signal in the
rest of the house, then you're done. Otherwise, you need two routers: the one
in the basement and the Belkin in your office. By default, you'll get two
levels of NAT on devices connected to the Belkin, but that usually works, in
my experience. If it doesn't, you can run the Belkin in "access point mode",
where you use only the Belkin's LAN ports. This defeats its DHCP server, but
you can still use the one in the basement router.