Using an old router as a switch?

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jonathan18

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#233497 18-Apr-2018 15:11

I'm using an old router as a switch, and wanted to know how advisable this is.

While wifi is now provided by a couple of decent APs, I'm still using an old TP Link router (TL-WR1043ND) to act as a switch in one part of the house. I had been using a newer router for this duty until today, but had significant network problems (both wired and wireless) that went away after I took this router out of the equation.

I've done the standard things I'm aware of like disabling the DHCP server, assigning it a different IP address on the same subnet and disabling wifi, but I'm worried I'll end up with similar problems. A Google search shows some suggesting disabling NAT, but I don't have any such ability to do so on this router. Could this cause a problem?

Essentially, I'm looking to create a reliable and stable network - both wired and wireless - so happy to replace this router with a dedicated switch if it's advisable to do so. If so, do I need to get something fancy, or in this case would a consumer-grade switch like this one be ok? https://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?itemID=375927

Many thanks

trig42

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#1998647 18-Apr-2018 15:13

Should be fine, so long as DHCP and WiFi turned off, and nothing plugged into WAN port.

hio77

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#1998675 18-Apr-2018 15:17

This works just like using an old modem as an AP.

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jonathan18

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#1998684 18-Apr-2018 15:34

Thanks for the confirmation. I've been running a router like this for years, but hit problems with it the very day I installedv the two new WiFi APs. Removing it seems to have got rid of all the issues (thus far!).

It seems like the router had just died as no port is live anymore and I now can't even log into it's interface even after resetting it, and while this may just be a coincidence I didn't want to be continuing with what may have been a week spot in our setup by using a router in this way.