Conflict between Home Hub and Thompson Gateway routers

[#1]

I have recently installed a BT Home Hub successfully.  However, my house is very long with very thick walls - two old cottages.  To obtain WiFi coverage, I have to piggy-back a second WiFi router using an Ethernet network between the two routers.  It has worked successfully for years.  All other system like TP Links etc. just do not give satisfactory coverage.

However, I have hit a problem with the BT Home Hub, because it uses the same http://192.168.1.254 address as the Thompson Gateway.  My previous Linksys router used http://192.168.1.1.  There is therefore a conflict between the two routers, I suspect because the system does not work.  I have tried to ensure that DCHP is turned off on the Thompson Gateway router.

Any suggestions ?

Thanks.

[#2]

Unless your Thomson gateway is very very primitive it should be possible to change its base IP address.  Give a computer a temporary fixed IP address (e.g. 192.168.1.20) then connect it directly to the Thomson and change its base IP.  I had to do this a few months ago and because the Thomson router I was dealing with was pretty primitive I had to create a file of the settings, edit the file and then read it back.  This procedure was described somewhere on these forums.  Any new IP address on the range 1 to 63 should be okay.   

[#3]

Its very easy to change the IP addresses on the Home Hub, just go to Advanced Options - Home Network - IP Addresses, and chose the 172 range, or you can choose your own range, however don't forget to leave the first 64 for BT's internal stuff (WiFi).

[#4]

The first 63/64 IP addresses are just left vacant for use by static IPs.  AFAIK it's nothing to do with "BT's internal stuff".

[#5]

Yep, nothing to do with BT's internal stuff.

My Thomson/Technicolour routers when I was with O2 then Sky, and now my Plusnet Hub One, all use the same IP ranges and my PC has had the same static IP of 192.168.1.63 all along!

[#6]

Thanks.  I have tried it on the Thompson and it is indeed easy.

However, what IP address can I use for the Thompson ?  My old Linksys was 192.168.1.1 which is therefore easy to remember, but would that be compatible with the Hme Hub in view of the first 64 discussion above ?  The Thompson is the slave router, nit the master which is the BT Home Hub.

[#7]

192.168.1.1 would work fine.

[#8]

I suggest you use 192.168.1.20.  That should work perfectly with a BT Home Hub but is large enough to be unlikely to clash if you switch to another router.  Whatever you choose, make a label and stick it on the Thomson router for future reference.

Any address in the range 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.63 is extra-compatible with a Home Hub.

[#9 · Accepted solution]

Thanks to everyone for their various suggestions and comments which have fully resolved the problem.  Everything is working tickety-boo !