How to Set Up a WRT54G as a Repeater

I have been using Linksys WRT54G for over 15 years now and it has been an excellent router.

Over time the broadband speeds have increased and my current broadband plan supports 200 Mbps. My router has an official peak speed of 54 Mbps but practically even if I sit next to it, I get around 20 Mbps which falls to less than 10Mbps in the next room and by the time I reach my 3rd bedroom, the signal is almost gone. So I felt, I am losing out on the speed I am paying for.

Another issue was the increase of device counts connecting to the router. Earlier it used to be just my laptop. Now we have 3 laptops, 2 smart phones, 1 Smart TV and the count will simply increase in future. In here my router was unable to cope up with. So if my child is watching YouTube on TV in FullHD , (in lock down due to Corona), my Skype and Team calls get impacted although I have enough bandwidth to support all in parallel.

So it was time for an upgrade. Did my research and finally concluded on TP-Link Archer C60 AC1350 primarily due to:

1. Wanted a dual band router as it can support up to 867 Mbps @ 5 GHz. I don't think I will cross that speed in next 3-4 years
2. It support MU-MIMO which will help support multiple devices in parallel
3. Has 5 Antennas
4. Cost was Rs 2200 on Amazon which was like 300 more than next model but had more features.

With the new router coming in, I did not want to throw my old router as the new one still did not reach my 3rd bedroom well. So started looking up on Google to convert my Linksys WRT54G in to a repeated. And yes it was possible.

The 2 reference links are :

1. To flash the router and install DD-WRT on it : https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G_v5.0_%26_5.1_%26_6.0
2. Configure the  repeater : https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-set-up-a-wrt54gs-as-a-repeater

Although the links are pretty accurate, there are some misses in there which I believe is more like article was written in the past and things have changed.

To flash the router and install DD-WRT on it

1. DO the hard reset exactly as its said i.e. 30-30-30. Actually I did like 60-60-60 to be safe and all went fine.
2. The GV5Flash.zip download is missing vximgtoolgui executable although the folder name is the same. The executable inside the folder is wrt_vx_imgtool which is like command line version of the tool . To get the GUI, use this url : http://web.archive.org/web/20060708130642/http://www.bitsum.com/files/vximgtoolgui.zip

Configure the  repeater

1. In here skip the 'Reset Router' and 'Update Firmware' sections
2. Start from 'Set Static IP Address'
3. if you favour command line, you can use
   netsh interface ip set address name="Ethernet" static 192.168.1.9 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1
   netsh interface ip set address name="Ethernet" dhcp
4. Change Router Settings : Step 7 - You can put a better SSID than 'bridge' like _rpt or _ext
5. An important step missed in here is to secure the repeater itself. To do so, go to Wireless :: Wireless Security Tab :: Virtual Interfaces section. In there you can set security mode for the repeater like WPA2 Personal and the key.

Now a bigger issue is once you have setup the repeater, there is no way you can access it over WiFi as its a plain proxy. If you try http://192.168.0.1/ , you will end up with the primary router. and there is no http://192.168.1.1/. So to access it back again, 

1. you will need to setup you local laptop with static IP :
   netsh interface ip set address name="Ethernet" 
2. Connect your laptop to the repeater using the Ethernet cable
3. Now try http://192.168.1.2/ as the repeaters own address is 1.2 with 1.1. being the gateway (as configured in Step 3 of 'Change Router Settings'

So all good, I ended up with 3 SSIDs:

1. Primary 2.4 GHz
2. Primary 5 GHz
3. Repeater 2.4 GHz

and yes my whole house is now covered :)