How to Setup any Wireless Router?

Posted by On March 31, 2018 1 Comment

Setting up any wireless router is not that hard as it seems. All you need to know are some steps and follow this simple guide to setup wireless router. This will help you set up your wireless router to propagate the internet to all your wireless devices. Most of the times with the new routers out there you can connect wirelessly and set them up but sometimes it requires wired LAN connection to configure the router. My recommendation is that if you have ethernet adapter in your PC or laptop try configuring through wired connection. It is because after saving the settings it may take time to reconnect to your wireless network.

Setup Wireless Router

Setting up Wireless Router on Windows PC

Things that you will need before setting up your wireless router:

  1. Broadband or cable internet connection.
  2. Wireless router: the which you are going to use to setup your wireless network.
  3. Wireless network adapter or ethernet adapter in your PC or laptop to connect to the router.

How to check if your PC has Wireless or Ethernet Adapter?

  • Click on start button and search “Device Manager” and open it.
  • Expand the Network Adapters section in the device manager window.
  • If there is a list saying wireless or ethernet then your PC/laptop has it.

Setting up the modem/router and Internet connection

There can be two things here. Either your wireless router have modem and wireless router or you already have modem and you need to configure the router to create a wireless network. So if you have a already internet setup modem then it’s good or else you have to configure the router as per your ISP settings. This will ensure you are connected to internet. Follow the instructions provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and configure your router. Now comes the section to set the router to create a Wi-Fi network at your place.

  1. Open the router box if you have already opened it. Connect the power cord to the back panel of the wireless router.

  2. Plug the adapter in any nearby AC outlet. Power LED light will start blinking or just simply turns on.

  3. Now connect the LAN cable to the broadband modem.

  4. Insert the other end of the LAN/ethernet cable into the WAN (wide area network) port on the back panel of the wireless router.
    Note: If your router has both modem and Wi-Fi the do not follow steps 3 and 4. Just connect the Broadband cable from your ISP to the router.

    Setting up any wireless router

    Diagram | Condition: When your Router has both modem and Wi-Fi

  5. Now you have option to connect your laptop/PC with ethernet cable or through Wi-Fi. So, connect through LAN by inserting the ethernet cable in LAN port 1 of the router and in your ethernet adapter of you laptop/PC.

    setup wireless router first time

    When you connect your laptop through ethernet (LAN) cable

  6. Your Windows will connect through the ethernet.

  7. Open your Web browser.

  8. Type 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 (most routers like DLink, Linksys, Netgear has these ip as default) to open your router settings. For default IPs of other routers see here: Router Login IP

  9. Press Enter key. Most of the routers interface looks like this. Follow the setup wizard to setup your router.

Router setup wizard

The first page of the routers where you can follow the setup wizard to setup your Wi-Fi

Some Other Things You must Consider While Setting Up Your Router

Putting your Wireless Router at the Perfect Position

Least interference and maximum signal strength should be the priority to get the best results. Some of the important tips you should follow:

Put your Wi-Fi router in center. By center I mean that you should place it somewhere where all the devices get equal strength of Wi-Fi. So that, everyone can enjoy good Wifi connection. If you place the router in the center of your home, you will get signals in all the place (Average Size homes only. Not the ones having area of thousands of square feet :P). For bigger homes you may require to setup repeaters.
Router Location in Home

Location of the router in Your home for maximum signal everywhere

Metal Objects and walls should not be near the router: Things like metal cabinets, Almirah, walls should not be near the router as they interfere with the signal of the router.
Reduce interference due to other equipments. Many networking and household equipment uses a 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) radio frequency which your router also uses. If your router supports you can change the frequency to higher level 5.8GHz. It will increase your connection speed and reduce the interference. But it will reduce the range of your router as higher frequency have shorter wavelength and hence overall reducing the range of Wifi.

Increasing your router and wireless network security

Secured connection must be the priority to prevent anyone messing with your network and also accessing your internet. This will protect you from other people doing illegal activities from your internet connection.

Things that you must to improve the security:

Change the default username and password: Most routers comes with default username and password that you use to login in the router interface. Some routers does not have any password. You must change these default passwords to something unique as your routers are accessible over internet and anyone can mess with routers setting.
Learn how to:
Password Protect your Wifi network: To prevent anyone from using your network is to simply enable password protection on your wifi network. Enable WPA or WPA2 security to make much harder for hackers to hack in your wifi network. Also you can do MAC filtering so that only your devices can access the internet of wifi. Know how: Enable MAC Filtering on D’link Routers
That’s all folks! If you still need any help you can ask me in comments below. I will try to help you out as soon as possible. I hope the guide to SETUP WIRELESS ROUTER is useful to you. You can ask any particular router related questions too. Feel free to comment.