[Hopkins]

I have made a daft mistake... While following the procedure to set up an access point I hit "apply" at the end of step three of the "Normal Version (Same Subnet)" section. This restarted the router and rendered me unable to connect to complete the setup! And now, I do not seem to be able to connect to the device by any means.

I have tried various restarting procedures but I have been unable to restore the default setup.

Interestingly, when I connect it to my other router - which it was intended to be connected to - I can connect to the admin page of that router through the R7800. However, I cannot connect to the internet, nor can the router "see" the access point.

Any suggestions, please?

[dale_gribble39]

http://the.ip.you.configured ... in other words, whatever IP address you assigned to the router, use that and ensure you are using http and not https. Otherwise, power up the router and let it boot up completely and depress the reset button for ~10 seconds and release. You should also be using a static IP assigned to the client device used to configure the router.

[Hopkins]

Thank you for the reply. I believe I had attempted this, although I will double check that I was using http. It was late and I could have made a mistake!

Should there be any communication between the computer into which I plug my partially defined switch/access point which would reveal this IP? When I ran ipconfig (I was using a Windows 7 machine, although I have a linux machine which I can also play with) I couldn't see anything connected. (I do believe I know the IP which I defined for it, and I don't think it responds... Nor did I have any luck connecting with tftp to this IP address.)

Is it correct that, when it was functioning as a switch and I could access the router through it, the switch was not listed in the list of connected devices?

[Hopkins]

Just to let you know: after much playing around I finally managed to reset the router to default configuration and get back in on 192.168.1.1. I'm not entirely sure what I did, but it included several power cycles and various different periods of reset button holding. Until that point there was no response to attempts to access the GUI via the IP address which I can configured.

I also discovered that the DD-WRT default WiFi setup is not open and refers to the hard-coding of the default Netgear WiFi password as written on the sticker. (I had previously assumed that that would be lost with the old Netgear firmware, but this was false!)

I have now successfully configured the router as a switch and wireless access point.

[asavage]

I had to reset (hardware button) my two R7800s around a dozen times last week, as any change to a VLAN setting fubar'd them, in that restoring a backup config taken just before the VLAN change would load but render the unit uncommunicative and a lot of lights flashing.

Hardware button reset, access web UI via default 192.168.1.1, restore backup config, then after it comes up access the web UI and restore the config again, that repeatably worked.

As I had to so this many times, it's fresh in mind.

I never was able to change any of the VLAN settings via the web UI and have it restart working in any fashion.

a) The router would not pick up a WAN IP via DHCP to the cable modem

b) If I then tried to either change the single VLAN setting back to what it was previously, it still would not obtain a WAN IP, even though the VLAN screen looked as it did before the change from working

c) Restoring from backup config would leave the router uncommunicative and lights flashing. Had to hardware reset at that point, then double restore config.

After hardware resets, I was always able to obtain a dd-wrt login screen, which forced me to change credentials before allowing me to do anything, and at no point did I use the Netgear credentials printed on the bottom of the units. So, my experience on my two units is different from yours.

Eventually, after several hours of attempts, I put both R7800s back to where they had been, and found better things to do . . .

[ho1Aetoo]

But it also works if you configure VLAN's via GUI.
However, you should know that you then put the router into VLAN mode.

Instead of eth0 / eth1 the vlans are to be used as WAN port and bridged interfaces.