Wireless router after wireless router

Currently I've got an older E1000 wireless router hooked up to my modem. The router has to be in the back room because that's where the Ethernet ports for the bedrooms all branch from (three port socket on the wall gives 1 socket in each bedroom). The issues is that my room is at the front end of the house and I have poor signal and about 1/12 the download speed on wireless.

What would be the best way to remedy this? I considered disabling the wireless in the E1000, using it only as a switch, then adding a new router in my room. If I were to do this, what settings would I need to change on the E1000 and the new router to get this to work right? The roommate in the back room browses Facebook all day while the other two of us in the front game and are heavy downloaders so we want the extra speed

Edit: ran speed test to check. In the back room I get 24.06 down, 1.59 up and 16ms ping whereas in my room I get 2.47 down, .96 up and 23ms ping.

 

Since you don't have Ethernet sockets in your room your choices are limited to- buying another router and placing it half way to act as a repeater (this will cut the throughput in half though).
You could replace E1000 which is a bad choice if you're after range. In smallnetbuilder's tests it achieves throughput of 1.1mbps in the worst location (F) whereas i.e. Netgear WNDR3700 v2 achieves 13,7mbps in the same location. (Downlink data for location F, 2.4GHz 40MHz according to smallnetbuilder)

You can also consider powerline adapter with up to 80mbps throughput (if you're lucky).

Cheap solution would be to move around the E1000- check if moving it up or changing its placement inside the room doesn't improve the throughput at least a bit but I would go for a better router.

 

Sorry if I didn't make that clear, each of the bedrooms has an Ethernet port in it that comes from the back bedroom. The back bedroom has 4 ports, 3 on the back wall branch to each of the bedrooms (the 4th is connected to one of the 3, just located on the opposite wall of the same room).

Edit: Excuse the crude picture, I'm on my mobile. Hopefully it shows you what I mean though. Router (black) currently has to be in the top-most room. I can connect the LAN ports to each of the three ethernet ports (red, green, blue) which are connected to the bedrooms.

 

Use two routers, just disable DHCP on the second router (the one closest to your room) and give it a static ip address in your network scope.

So, for example, router in back is setup normally as full router. Lets stay your internal private network is 192.168.0.1-through 192,168.0.254---set the DHCP on this router to 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.99.

Put the second wireless router in the room closest to yours. Disable DHCP. Set the ip address manually to 192.168.0.100. Hook the cable coming out of the wall into LAN port 1. Hook computer in that room to LAN port 2 (don't use WAN port at all).

Enjoy. And, you can always connect to the wireless using 192.168.0.100 if you need to alter the wireless settings.

oh, if the router in the backroom is also wireless, give both wireless networks the same wireless name (ssid) and password, but put them on different bands--that way as you wander around your house with the laptop, it will change networks to the strongest signal automatically

 

By bands you mean channels right? Now that I think about it, I'll probably be the only one on the 5ghz channels. Give myself priority on both routers and I'll be good to go.

Will there be a significant speed decrease from using two routers?

 

Im sorry, yes, I meant channels. And no, there will be no speed decrease.

We are not talking about using the router as a wireless repeater--we are simply utilizing the router as a wireless access point. It would be just like running a 100 foot ethernet cable from your cable/dsl modem to the wireless router in the room next to yours

 

Yeah, got it. Just checking! now I've just got to pick out a second router.

 

I've run into a bit of a snag.. I got a Linksys WRT54GS v7 for free (Family member upgraded from DSL to AT&T U-Verse) and I decided to put that in my room. Here's what I have done:
- I reset it to factory settings
- disabled DHCP on the wrt54gs
- told the main E1000 router (it's IP address is 192.168.1.1) to start at IP adress 192.168.1.3
- I set the WRT54GS to have an IP of 192.168.1.2
- Renamed the wrt54gs network name to match the main one
- Set it to a different channel
- matched the security settings to the main one, when I clicked apply the page never finished loading

I can still connect to the internet, but I can't connect to the wrt54gs router using 192.168.1.2. I can connect to the main router using 192.168.1.1 just fine. I appear to have increased signal strength in my room and it looks to be connecting at 54Mbps when next to the wrt54gs and stays at 54Mbps when next to the E1000.

I assumed this was due to being in GN mixed mode and defaulting to the lower when multiple type devices are connected. Just for funsies I switched the E1000 to N only mode, and now I can't connect to it wirelessly.

Ninja edit, now I can connect to the 54gs wired. But still wont load the E1000 page.

Edit: I wired directly to the E1000 and I set it back to used GN-mixed mode. I can access it wirelessly again. Just for clarification, I do have a N card in my laptop, so that shouldn't have been an issue.

Edit2: ok so the connection type on the 54gs was still set to "Automatic Configuration - DHCP", with DHCP disabled. Is that correct? I tried to set it to Static IP, but it keeps telling me that my WAN and LAN addresses are the same and I don't see how to change them....??

Edit3: I lost the 54gs page again.. Wonder why it drops like that

Edit4: It appears that rebooting it allows me back into it for a while. I do seem to have increase download/upload speeds, as well as a decreased ping.

My issue now is that if I turn off wireless and try to connect wired to the internet, I can't connect. Windows troubleshooting tells me I have an invalid IP configuration for Local Area Connection.

Edit5:I was using the WAN port instead of LAN1 I got that fixed and now I don't have any problems accessing the router. It still doesn't appear to be broadcasting correctly though.

Edit6: I upgraded the firmware to the latest version.

EDIT7: I can't believe I ended up with all of these edits. I did a factory reset and I started from scratch. Everything set up correctly. Using inSSIDer I can see my E1000 on channel 1 and the 54gs on channel 6. My laptop connects to the E1000 (RSSI -50) even though it's in the same room as the 54gs (RSSI -17). I changed the Roaming Aggressiveness to Highest for my wireless card (Intel Centrino Wireless N 1000), but it still connects to the E1000..