WZR HP AG300H issue

[bob76]

Hi there, I purchased the above router a few months back when it was on sale at newegg and I just got around to setting it up the other night.  Heres what I did...I put in the CD that was included with the package--followed the instructions--flashed to the userfriendly firmware.  Now here is my problem, I have internet connection and according to the l.e.d.s on the front of the router both networks are up, but I am only able to see and connect to the 11n/b/g network, the 11n/a doesnt show up on any of my devices nor in the airstation configuration tool that you launch from the cd to get to the web based settings menu.  I am not very network savvy and would really appreciate any help anyone could offer.

 

Thanks

[buddee]

You probably don't have any dual band adapters in order to see the 5Ghz band. 5Ghz adapters aren't common place - few newer devices are just now starting to have them built in, so most times you have to buy them extra.

[bob76]

I was under the impression that I would be able to set up 2 seperate networks.  One on the 5ghz band for all my devices that support 802.11n and another on the 2.4ghz band to support my older devices that are 802.11b/g.  Was I wrong in this assumption?  I guess I should have researched a bit deeper.

[buddee]

Well not entirely incorrect, but with that unit its like this. You have 2 radios - One of the radios is for 2.4Ghz band which you can run in B/G/N and the other radio is a 5Ghz band which you can run in A/N, thats why its called dual simultaneous N, because N can run in both the 2.4Ghz band and the 5Ghz band. So yea, techinically you could set up the 2.4Ghz radio for B/G only and setup the 5Ghz radio for N-only, but you'd still need a dual band wireless adapter to be able to see the 5Ghz band and use it on one of your computers. And to clarify, it would still be one network, not 2 seperate networks. The 2.4 radio and 5Ghz radio are still connected into one switched LAN, unless you set it up differently. You can setup multiple SSID's with a virtual interface and use iptables to create multiple networks, but hey, i'm trying to keep it easy on you because you said you didn't know alot about this stuff. :)

[bob76]

haha alright I think I understand now.  Thank you for the help, just one last question..since it doesnt seem like I will be utilizing the 5ghz radio would there be any benefit to disabling it in the user menu?

[buddee]

Good question to ask, the answer is yes, because when you have one of the radios turned off it then doesn't use those resources (ram and cpu cycles) that it would normally have to use in order to have it running. So yes, if you don't use it, don't run it and it will free those resources up.

[bob76]

thanks again