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The network topography of my house involve a cable modem in the downstairs basement and a wireless router with radio disabled there also in the basement so all the wired connections involving home entertainment systems and gaming consoles will go to the outlets in the basement leading to the appropriate rooms. (The basement wired connections use a radio disabled wireless router because they are actually cheaper than wired routers themselves). Then one of the wired connections lead to a central area of the house that has a wireless router to broadcast Wi-Fi in the appropriate location. (Obviously broadcasting wifi in the basement where the cable modem is would not make sense.) Anyways, for a while a lot of the computers keep getting self-assigned ip addresses usually after they restart or come out of hibernate and then connect to the wifi. Almost every time that happens I have to reset the modem the router and second router every time and it gets annoying. Could this have anything to do with having two routers in the house? Should I get a wireless switch for the central area instead? Or would that not make a difference?

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Its okay to have multiple routers on the network, as long as they are configured correctly. You want to have a router, not a switch, acting as your gateway connected to your cable modem. This router should have Wi-Fi disabled and it should be running a DHCP server to assign out IP addresses.

Your second (and any subsequent routers), should be configured to disable the DHCP server. Also, you should be connecting the connection to the first router into one of the LAN ports of the router, rather than the WAN port. You'll also need to setup a static IP address for this router that is outside the range of the DHCP server, maybe something like 192.168.0.2.

With this configuration all of your machines will be on the same network and should be getting their IP addresses from the DHCP server on the first router.

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  • setup a static IP address for this router that is outside the range of the DHCP server >> This is correct but i would still add to use an address within the same subnet of the main router so this router would still be accessible to the other computers/devices. Otherwise it would be a hassle (i.e. setting a static ip on a computer) if you need to change its settings (e.g. for WiFi access). +1
    – Rik
    Dec 3, 2013 at 21:47
  • My network runs much more efficient now Dec 10, 2013 at 21:39

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