After changing my router's local IP address it becomes inaccessible. Why?

Question

I'm adding another router to my home network to extend my WiFi range. (Linksys e2500.) I'm trying to change its IP from the default 192.168.1.1 so that it doesn't conflict with my primary (dhcp) router.

To isolate matters I've reset the router to factory settings, turned off my mac's WiFi and then connected the Mac to a Lan port on the router. Now I can view the router's admin page at 192.168.1.1. Great.

Now I change its local IP to 192.168.1.3 and leave the subnet as 255.255.255.0. The router reboots and after several minutes is inaccessible at any IP I try (still hardwired to the Mac with WiFi off). Ifconfig doesn't show the router and the only way I can get it back is to factory reset it again.

Anything I'm missing? Any settings I need to change on my Mac to be able to see the router?

Solution

Ok I've figured this out (or at least, it's working again). Because I was turning off DHCP in the process of changing the router's IP, after restarting the router it was no longer assigning my Mac an IP. And since my Mac was disconnected from the main LAN, it wasn't registered with any router and therefore unable to see the router at 192.168.1.3.

The fix was to plug the new router into the main LAN after changing its IP. That allowed my Mac to get an IP address from the main DHCP router.

Comments

[Admin]

So, in my scenario above, the only router connected to my mac is the new linksys one via ethernet cable. (The wifi is turned off.) And all I'm doing is changing the last octet of the local IP address. I understand that if I were changing one of the other octets it might be invisible because of the subnet, but that doesn't seem like the case here.