E3200 vs G3100 as a wired extender?

jbhenz1337

I have a G3100 being used for wireless and a few wire ports in the house. I need more wireless coverage and have a spare G3100 and a E3200 that I can use as a wired option on my 2nd floor. The G3100 can be used in AP more or I can use the E3200. Does it matter which I choose? Would one be better than the other for coverage or by specs?

smith6612

The E3200 will work better as an extender since it is designed to do just that. When you connect it to your network, it should synchronize the wireless settings with your main router and start to work shortly after. If you can feed the E3200 with Coax or Ethernet back to your main G3100 router, you'll be able to get more wireless performance out of the extender. The two Ethernet ports on the back will both be usable, just be aware there is a known issue with those ports where they like to take a minute to work after connecting a device. I believe this has to do with the ports performing a spanning tree check, which is a mechanism used to detect and close off network loops. You can mask this issue by sticking a switch in between one port of the E3200 and your devices.

The secondary G3100 can be set up as an extender in a makeshift way. The trick is to disable DHCP and the WAN Interface (both Ethernet AND Coax!!!) on the G3100 in the Web Interface, and change the secondary G3100's IP address from 192.168.1.1 to something else (outside of your network's DHCP Range ideally, but in the same subnet, so you can still manage it). You can then choose to set the same SSID Name/Password for the Wi-Fi, or set up a different Name and Password to identify it, and match up the rest of the settings with your main router. The secondary G3100 will then need to be connected up to your main G3100 via Ethernet using one of the LAN ports on the secondary G3100, or via Coax using MoCA LAN.

The only problem matching the name/password/other Wireless settings (besides channels) can cause is with Wireless roaming between the main G3100 and the secondary G3100 running as an extender. Of course, the secondary G3100 also will not synchronize settings with the main G3100, so things will be a bit more manual for you. The only other issue I can think of is if you connect the E3200 up to your network, if it will get confused by and associate with the wrong G3100 for its settings.