Our house is over 70 years old and has a metal mesh covering the plaster. My wife's office, where the new router is located was built 8 years ago and is attached to the main structure. Wireless speed to the rest of the house is not great, even though we upgraded the potential up and download speed of the internet through our provider.
My first thought was to bridge the two routers to increase speed to the smart tv on the main floor next to the office as well as to my computer at least 100 feet away from the router at the opposite end of the house. Linksys support said this wasn't possible so I purchased, unencumbered by the thought process, the N300 to extend the range to my office. The N300 needs to be on the same house circuit to work. Well guess what? The addition is on a different circuit so the PLE400 won't sync with the PLW400---no matter where you put it in the house.
My thought there, a messy one, was to attach the N300/PLE400 to the router with a longer cat5 cable and put it into the house where it would be able to search for the same circuit. That means 15-20 feet of cable wrapped around the floor and into the living room.
Interestingly enough, several of the replies on this forum said that it is possible to bridge the routers, which is A) Cheaper and B) Seems dangerous for a non-techie to attempt from what I've read.
I've copied down the IP4 address and did not see an IP6 address to copy. Probably not an issue since it's going to an older modem which I do not believe has the 5gb capacity.
I see the bridge mode on the new machine.
Do I need the IP4 address of the old machine? How do I get that without plugging it in?
Will plugging the old router in, disable both routers? How do you avoid that
Which do I use? The router or the extender? Once I have the router bridged into the house, would the extender work then?
Please use very short words and I'll ask when I don't understand the acronym.