Few questions on setting up this router for increased range:
1. Can the 3500L be setup as a repeater with the Linksys e3000 as the base unit?
2. If so, can I then hook the 3500L in another room with an ethernet cable into an Xbox or bluray player directly rather than wireless?
3. Would I be better off just ordering another 3500L and using one of them as the base?
Wow, I thought this forum would be FULL of smart people who could answer this. Guess not:((
Probably no one with a Linksys e3000 that has done it before. ;)
I don't see why it wouldn't work. Using a DD-WRT or a Tomato firmware
This should help you with the setup.
http://www.myopenrouter.com/article/16337/Using-NETGEAR-WGR614L-with-DD-...
The WGR614L and the WNR500L setup pretty much the same way.
See I knew this forum had some smart people :-) I actually think I would be better off getting another 3500L and setting it up because last night I switched from the e3000 back to the 3500 and get a much stronger signal!
So If I setup the repeater can i hook it up directly to the xbox and bluray thru ethernet on the repeater modem?
I have tried a similar setup before with the e3000 (running stock firmware) and a WNR3500V2 running tomato (bridge mode) with a PS3 attached to the latter. It works fine.
There is no reason why the wnr3500L should not work if you are running either tomato or dd-wrt (including Kong's firmware).
So is tomato or dd-wrt that much better than the stock firmware? Im a little afraid to brick it after reading about it!!!
Don't be afraid. There is only a very small chance of bricking if you follow the installation instructions in this forum. Note that you can brick even when you upgrade from Netgear stock to a new Netgear firmware.
I believe the Netgear firmware has a wireless repeating function that you can enable, but I have never tried it myself.
I cannot say which firmware is better than another, because each has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, I believe Tomato's and Kong's dd-wrt media server work stably, whereas Netgear does not even include it. On the other hand, Netgear stock firmware is much faster in terms of WAN/LAN and LAN/WAN throughput. Also, I think the Netgear wireless works much better than either dd-wrt or tomato.
Well thanks for that input taek. I will probably just leave the stock firmware on it for now. Its working fine like it is so might as well just leave it alone.