How I got my Netgear WN3000RP working

I'm sharing this on my blog because I had a bit of trouble getting my Netgear WN3000RP WiFi Network Extender working. So if you're having problems, read on.

I bought the WN3000RP just before Christmas. I followed the instructions on the box. It all seemed to be going well until I got to the final step, which should have completed the connection. But the forth light wouldn't light up, and when I clicked 'continue' I got an error message saying the extender couldn't connect to the existing wifi network.

Despite this, I could connect to the extender, and the extender was communicating with the router. But it was a local connection only, nothing going out onto the internet. Which didn't make sense. Tried a few times. From a PC, Mac and the Xbox. No good.

Googled. Found people who were so frustrated they just gave up. Found some quite complicated solutions on the Netgear forums, but nothing that seemed to match my specific problem.

Put it on hold and had another go after Christmas. And got it working! Not sure exactly what the problem was, but I can tell you what I did differently this time around.

1. Factory reset. There's a hole for a paperclip in the side. I read on a couple of forums that people got it working after doing a factory reset. Didn't really seem to make sense but I decided to give it a go anyway.
2. Did the initial set-up from a PC. I think the first time around, I tried with the Mac. Don't know if this made a difference. But I went through the instructions again and got the fourth light on, which was progress.
3. 'Diagnose'. It still wasn't connecting through to the internet. So I went into the network settings thing in Windows and I clicked on the 'diagnose' button. Windows gave me a few options. The first one I tried was something like 'automatically assign an IP address'. I tried this but it didn't work.
4. 'Turn off router'. The second thing it suggested was turning the router off for 10 seconds then back on. Again, it's one of those things that I was dubious off, but decided to give it a go.
5. After that, I tried the 'assign IP address' thing again, and it worked.

After getting it up and running, it works on the Mac, PC and Xbox. It's been working solidly for a few days now, although I have to admit I haven't had the guts to turn off the extender, in case it resets or something. :)

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