Bridging TP-LINK TR-WR340G and TR-WR740N
I bought TR-WR740N, made by TP – LINK, router and also function as Wireless Access Point to extend my existing access point range which managed by TR-WR340G. I was trying to connect them up or in correct term named bridge. I found none from google explains this up so maybe quite fine to writing about it in this site.
I was almost pulling my hair connecting these two router even in same brand. I want TR-WR740N will be my main router replacing the old WR340G but I face problem to unclear firmware update from TP-Link it self, if you trying to download WR340G firmware you’ll found several firmware for different hardware version and I don’t even know what the correct version of the hardware. It’s say V2.24 but there’s no firmware for v2.24 hardware, how confusing it was. So, I download firmware for V2 hardware since 2 is the major number from versioning and guess what happen next, in the router’s web interface I can see the hardware version overwritten to version 3. Dear God.
Now, I am going to connect this two wierd device into bridging mode. Now, connect your WR740G to your computer using LAN cable and accessing it’s web interface, go to Wireless Setting and active Enable WDS. You’ll find this screen
Press on Search button, you will see how many router / WAP around you including your neighbor router. Find unused channel, and make it as your Wireless channel to your home, in Indonesia radio interference is high so I need to find the most quiet channel. Please follow your country regulation to this setting.
In my test, WR340G can’t connect your WR740G. Why? because WR340G reads WR740G MAC address wrongly and the bridge function in WR340G is crippled. For example, 11-22-33-44-58 it reads 11-22-33-44-5F. How on earth that two router could communicate?
Second reason, WR340G only able to handle one Wireless encryption at one time. One for user, one for wireless bridge. So this is the finalization to frustration because I won’t my wife using WEP encryption when connection her mobile phone to WiFi .
Now to solve that problem, this is my final configuration; WR340G will be my router and connected to WAN, in my case connected to Cable ISP, and then WR740G will act as Wireless Access Point which shown in this following simple diagram. It’s very simple to implement but I have difficulty to figure it out how this two thing could connect each other at first.
Make sure your WAP didn’t use the same name if you don’t want your user confuse which one to connect. I have no problem to this because WR740G could handle different encryption to wireless bridging and wireless connection (end user). Hopes will work to you too.
Comments
penjelasannya teknis banget, cocok untuk orang-orang teknik,
nah kalo orang awam spt kami agak susah juga memahaminya,
mudah-mudahan berikutnya ada penjelasan simple, mo bikin wireless access point caranya gini.
hehe..
btw nice,
salam,
pasarjogja.com
Thank you so much..
My router show me “Enlable Bridges” instead “WDS”
I activate but only show me a text space to put only the MAC of the Access Point to be bridged. I put the MAC of the AP I want to bridge but nothing happens, any help?
It seems you’re trying to make your WR340G as repeater. WDS and Bridge are same thing. Go to Wireless statistic on your WR340G, check the AP MAC, copy to notepad and match with the AP MAC.
If it’s same then you’re lucky. Its should bridge. Turn off dhcp, change router IP into same subnet with AP, provide security key to connect the AP.
If you found different MAC Address and you’re very sure that you’re connecting to the correct AP. You’re facing problem like I had, WR340G can’t read AP MAC correctly. That’s pretty annoying.
That’s why I was making WR740N as repeater while WR340 as router.
I’ve bridged it with MR3420G and in my setup WR340G is the repeater as well. SSID, PW is same. But the WIFI asks for PW every time any device changes AP. WR340G only supports WEP key when using Bridge Mode.Is it becoz of that? Or becoz of same channel??
Yes, It could happen if you have different security profile for client
on each AP. For example, In your main router use WPA PSK for the client
to connect to the AP while in 340G which only support WEP when bridge
mode. That’s why the client will ask the password when switching AP.
Wireless bridge needs same channel on both AP to work, so it’s not the main problem.
Sorry, comments are closed