[Info-vax] somewhat off-topic: Sitecom access point and WLAN repeater

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

Somewhat off-topic, but hopefully someone knowledgeable will be able to 
chime in who knows something about how to troubleshoot a setup which is 
not completely run-of-the-mill.

Basically, the access point works fine, but the WLAN repeater (range
extender) screws up the network.  I see errors about more than one
machine with the same device, and HTTP connections to some clients
(FritzBox DSL router, access point, repeater) stop working.  Also, I
can't set a fixed IP address on the repeater (it gives an error message
saying that it conflicts with the AP uplink, which as far as I can tell
is not true, especially since it gives the same error for any fixed IP
address).  The access point has essentially the same setup menu, and
there I can set a fixed IP address. This doesn't help.  The repeater is
a DHCP client, and the access point works as such or with  fixed IP
address.  Neither is set to be a DHCP server.  I can log in and see that
each has a different dynamic IP address, different from anything else on
the network.  The repeater is properly configured to talk to the access
point, and wireless devices can connect to it, at least for a while,
until the network clogs up.  (I think this even forced a reboot of two
of my VMS nodes, which are on the same LAN.)  So, it is basically set up
and configured correctly, as far as I can tell. 

It looks like the access point is reasonably powerful, so I might not 
need the repeater, but I doubt that I can take it back to the store and 
say that it doesn't work.

This is a replacement for the Edimax which I mentioned here recently.  
Interestingly, the menu is almost the same, so maybe one company bought 
the other or it is common open-source code.  Surprisingly, I can't find 
any MAC-address filtering on the much newer Sitecom.

Can anyone suggest GOOD access points and WLAN repeaters?  Good means 
that they work well, can be configured easily (these days, probably only 
via HTTP; in the old days, there was sometimes (also) an ASCII menu (and 
sometimes one could even escape from this to the command line), have the 
latest security features (including MAC-address filtering) and have a 
DOCUMENTED initial IP address (if the default is not DHCP).  Plugging it 
in and accessing something like http://range.extender doesn't always 
work, but (apart from the address-clash problems mentioned above) I was 
always able to connect via the IP address.

During the setup, everything was connected by cable to the LAN.  
Bizarrely, when I disconnect the LAN cable from the REPEATER, I can no 
longer connect to the ACCESS POINT over the LAN.  The other problems I 
could put down to bugs, but this is really bizarre.

Maybe someone even has the N300 models?