topic Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater in Tech Help - Software/Hardware etc

Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

bobw1943 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 10:41:00 GMT

In an attempt to solve a weak signal area in my house I'm trying a Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater. I used the WPS button on my Hub 2 and the Repeater's button turned solid green as the manual says. I plugged the repeater into a socket adjacent to the problem area, and it lit up solid green.

I switched on the device which was reporting a weak signal (Acer Chromebook, C732 series) and it reported a strong signal, but no internet. A number of attempts gave the same result.

Any ideas as to what the problem is? The chromebook usually gets by on a weak signal but occasionally gives up on a graphic rich Chrome page.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

iannewson — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:22:30 GMT

Never used a Huawei booster but the tplink ones I tried once had another wifi address eg "WifiAdress_EXT" which you had to log into

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Ian06 — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 11:54:38 GMT

@bobw1943 wrote:

I plugged the repeater into a socket adjacent to the problem area, and it lit up solid green.

Sorry if this is obvious but the WiFi repeater needs to be plugged in where it can get a decent signal from the router and then it will repeat the WiFi signal afresh and hopefully provide a stronger signal to where you need it.... I think generally you would start by putting it halfway between where you need the signal and the router and experiment from that starting point. But it all depends on the layout of your house, what walls are blocking the signal etc.

If the repeater gets a poor signal from the router it isn't really going to improve things - probably make things worse.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

bobw1943 — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 12:20:21 GMT

Thanks for your response. The socket into which I plugged the repeater is about 4m from the router, through a doorway into the problem area. The Chromebook, which had reported a weak signal previously, reported a strong signal with the repeater in place, but no internet. Removing the repeater resulted in a weak signal, as before, but with internet.

I assumed therefore that the repeater was doing its job in delivering a stronger signal to the problem area. Are you saying that isn't the case?

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

MisterW — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 12:45:07 GMT

@bobw1943 from a look at the user guide , its seems like the WS320 is a router in its own right. It connects wirelessly to the main router but allocates IP addresses to its 'client' in the 192.168.10.x subnet.

In your case it sounds like it hasn't connected completely to the Plusnet Hub, so cant reach the internet.

Two thinks you can do to check :-

See if the WS320 appears in the device list on the Hub 2 and has been allocated an IP address by the Hub.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Ian06 — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 13:14:39 GMT

@MisterW @bobw1943

The repeater appears to have an IP address of 192.168.1.254 by default, what is the gateway address of the Hub 2 (apologies I am no longer on plusnet and don't have a hub 2 ?) Is it possible there is a clash of IP addresses? The manual I found online doesn't indicate a router mode for this Huawei device.

I assume the indicator light on the Repeater is showing solid green - i.e. it's got a good connection to the router?

As MisterW says - worth logging on to the Web interfaces of router and repeater to check the connections look good.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

MisterW — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 13:26:15 GMT

The repeater appears to have an IP address of 192.168.1.254 by default, what is the gateway address of the Hub 2

@Ian06 that was my first thought, the Hub 2 address WILL be 192.168.1.254, so would clash if that's the case. However the WS320 manual says its default subnet is 192.168.10.x , unless of course that's a misprint ?

The manual I found online doesn't indicate a router mode for this Huawei device.

It doesnt explicitly have a router mode, but it appears to have DHCP server capabilities.

Re-reading the manual , it seems that is possibly disabled once its connected to the main router.

Any company selling a repeater with a default IP of 192.168.1.x would be asking for trouble , but that probably wouldnt stop them doing it!!

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Ian06 — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 13:35:06 GMT

@MisterW I think we may have found different versions of the manual online - The one i found for the Huawei WS320 doesn't say anything about a "Router" mode or a default subnet... it does note a "Subnet mask of the LAN interface - 255.255.255.0" but I don't think that's an issue

If both the router gateway and WiFi repeater are using 192.168.1.254 then there are going to be problems and could account for devices connected to the repeater not being able to reach the internet... perhaps?

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

MisterW — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 13:44:02 GMT

@Ian06 youre right , the one here https://www.manuals.co.uk/huawei/ws320/manual?p=33 says 192.168.1.x whereas the one I found on the Huawei site https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjEh7Sn6b6DAxUtTkEAHf_aDpgQFnoECCIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fconsumer-tkbdownload.huawei.com%2Fctkbfm%2Fservlet%2Fdownload%2FdownloadServlet%2FH4sIAAAAAAAAAD2Q3UvDMBTF_5WSJ4VObj6aD5_M0lTHQARX9pw16QzMbnStouL_blqKj-fecy6_e37QeA397usS0D3CKEf-_NktkibZxlN4du-TfKr13m6y_SslkNUplT2O0YfVzTzJAedZ6FbHw-3dxbdL9MUNbynKlAwcnG8bIpjiUikvm6AIJY2ibWiS-xC_Nz5Zt_phvoILoSQInlZNH9wQz90uThyYg2IUGGAAyNE1Hjs3jP1EaKxQFgvQvFLlmqxNISjjjFqsSVVIUkktNOGqIlCWUBLLwUgjjKZSFhZP73-4U_T1fyVDP4aZbalkq9HvHw19a4AzAQAA.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3Am6kaNQSOjcysknlgSrCq&opi=89978449

says 192.168.10.x

No perhaps about it!! it will prevent any internet access

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

bobw1943 — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 14:05:13 GMT

Many thanks again for this. I'm not able just now to investigate further but I will ASAP. I don't have the printed manual that came with my repeater.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

bobw1943 — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 10:49:16 GMT

I've connected to the WS320 on my Windows 10 PC, and the attached info is what I can see.

Does this answer any of the questions which have arisen?

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Ian06 — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:03:43 GMT

That info seems to be about the WiFi adapter on your PC.... it shows that it is connected to the Repeater WiFi.

What would be helpful is to try to logon to the Repeater Web Interface and check how that is configured, I suspect that it is using the same IP address (192.168.1.254) as the Hub 2 router. From a browser on the Windows PC connected to the Repeater if you enter the 192.168.1.254 in the address bar it should connect you to the Repeater Web user interface and allow you to access the repeater's configuration... if that doesn't work try the address 192.168.10.254 as initially suggested by @MisterW.

If the repeater is set up to use 192.168.1.254 as it's address this will be why you can't get access to the internet via the repeater. If it does use this IP adrs then you can configure it another unused address or better still, if you can, set it to DHCP so that it will ask the Hub2 to give it an IP address that isn't in use.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

MisterW — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:16:56 GMT

if that doesn't work try the address 192.168.10.254

if the repeater has that address , you'd not be able to access it from a PC with a 192.168.1.x address. In order to access it you would need to set a static IP on the pc in the 192.168.10.x subnet, say 192.168.10.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Dan_the_Van — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:25:36 GMT

say 192.168.10.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

Might I suggest a temporary mask of 255.255.0.0, this would cover both 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.10.0

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

bobw1943 — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:36:40 GMT

In case it's relevant, my PC is connected to my Hub2 by LAN.

When I connect to 192.168.1.254 I am taken to the Hub2 home page.

If I try to connect to 192.168.10.254 the attempt times out.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Dan_the_Van — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:41:04 GMT

@bobw1943

On the Hub two have you checked to see of the ws320 has been allocated an IP Address?

http://192.168.1.254/basic_-_my_devices.htm click on Wireless connections

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

bobw1943 — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:49:50 GMT

I cannot see the SSID "Repeater" in the list, neither can I find the WS320 MAC address among those devices listed as "unknown".

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Ian06 — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 13:06:44 GMT

I would disconnect the wired connection and just connect the PC to the SSID of the WS320 ("Repeater" ? and make sure the WS320 isn't connected to the hub 2) and then try to access the WS320's user interface, then reconfigure it with a new IP address that you can access from your LAN and doesn't clash with something else... once it has a IP address that plays nicely on your LAN you can connect the ws320 and pc to your HUB 2 router again.

@MisterW knows more about this than I do, so would defer to his approach/instructions....

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

MisterW — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 13:39:53 GMT

I cannot see the SSID "Repeater" in the list, neither can I find the WS320 MAC address among those devices listed as "unknown".

That's fairly conclusive that the repeater isnt connected to the Hub.

MisterW knows more about this than I do, so would defer to his approach/instructions....

Problem is I'm not at all familiar with the WS320 so am uncertain how it actually works. It would SEEM that it connects as a wireless client to the main router and then bridges? that connection to its own wireless network. What I'm not clear on is what it has as an IP address ? It would seem that when its not connected to a router it has the 192.168.10.254 address and so can be configured with a locally connected PC with a static IP in the same subnet. What is not clear is what IP it has when its connected to a router ? I would 'guess' that it gets an IP from the router via DHCP and would respond on that.

If that's the case then when its connected it SHOULD appear in the Hub2 device list.

Now it would seem that the repeater is only 2.4ghz so I wonder if the dual band same SSID functionality of the HUb 2 is confusing it. I'd be inclined to try disabling the 5ghz wireless on the Hub 2 and seeing if the repeater now connects ( confirming by checking the Hub 2 device list ). If that works, then reenable the 5ghz and check that it stays connected.

Re: Huawei WS320 Wireless repeater

Ian06 — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 15:23:42 GMT

Looking at the first link @MisterW provided it says:

You need to access the advanced configuration webpage through the wireless

network of the WS320. To log in to the advanced configuration webpage, you can

also do as follows:

When the WS320 Is Not Connected to the Wireless Router

Step 1

Set up a wireless connection between the PC and the WS320.

– When the WS320 is not connected to the wireless router: The SSID of

the wireless network to be connected is Repeater.

– When the WS320 is connected to the wireless router: The SSID of the

wireless network of your PC is the same as that of the wireless network

of the wireless router.

Step 2

Set the network connection of the PC and ensure that the IP address of the

PC is in the same network segment as the IP address of the WS320 local

area network (LAN) interface.

By default, the IP address of the WS320 LAN interface is 192.168.1.254

and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0. If the IP address of the LAN

interface is not changed, you can set the IP address and subnet mask of the

PC to 192.168.1.101 and 255.255.255.0 respectively.

When the WS320 is not connected to the wireless router, you can

configure the network connection of the PC to obtain an IP address

So if it were me I would make sure the WS320 isn't connected to the router - so it's SSID will be "Repeater". Connect to that WiFi network and check how the WS320 is configured... if it has a default IP address of 192.168.1.254 then you'll need to change it so that it doesn't clash with the router's internet gateway address.

The 2nd link from MisterW on the same page says "By default, the IP address of the WS320 LAN interface is 192.168.10.254" but both say you need to disconnect the WS320 from the Hub 2 (Router) to get access to the SSID "Repeater" and the WS320's configuration....

It implies that when the WS320 is connected to the HUB 2 then it will repeat the same SSID as the Hub 2 and the SSID "Repeater" isn't visible ... trouble is neither MisterW or I have a device to try it out on and have found two somewhat conflicting user manuals... sorry