How Can I Load Balance Two Wireless Routers?

How can I load balance two routers/APs?

• I help host a LAN several times a year. At our last event, our wireless router kept resetting, we suspect due to the heavy load (roughly 20 high-demand, gaming machines simultaneously pulling traffic). Our connection is 100Mbps / 100Mbps. After some research into the issue, we think the best solution is to provide two access points for the same connection. My question is, do we need two routers for this? Or would one router and then just an access point suffice? Are there guides to load balance these two? I tried looking on google, but just kept getting directed to companies selling load-balancing hardware. In general, are we thinking about this the right way?

• Answer:

  I currently have a setup that I think would work well for you. I use 3 routers to balance constant heavy usage. The best part about this is that you can do with this 2-4 routers. So here is what I suggest: Setup your one main router that connects to your modem with DHCP range of xxx.x.x.5 to xxx.x.x.255 Take note of your subnet mask and the wireless channel it is running on Connect a computer (in order to configure the second router) to your secondary router via an ethernet cable Turn off the DHCP on the second router, and set its LAN IP to something not in the DHCP range of the main router Change the subnet mask in the LAN settings of your second router to match that of the main router Change the WiFi channel to something different than the main router's channel Now run an ethernet from your main router to your secondary router. Make sure to connect it via one of the LAN ports not the WAN port You're all setup with two routers that are not conflicting. Additionally I would make sure your main router (the one that connects to your modem) is your best and that it is one of good quality. Using at least one dual band router would also benefit you (so some people that have 5ghz supporting devices can use it). This should balance the load pretty evenly and also stretch is great for stretching your wifi range