Wireless Network help!

I need some help.

I have a "long" house. I keep my cable modem in the back room and run a pretty lengthy wire to the next room over where I have my wireless router. I had to put the router a room closer to get any sort of signal in the front of my house...I WISH I could have it in the back..but anyway...

Linksys Wireless router BEFW11S4 V.2


All the way in the front of my house is my living room, where I often hang out with my Powerbook/MBP. The problem is, the signal up there is pretty low. It cuts in and out and it drives me crazy.

My router is sort of old, so I assumed that it had poor range because it's older so I decided to buy a new one. I went with a Linksys WRT110 RANGEPLUS Router.


I replaced my existing router in the exact same place and went up to my front room and noticed that I had an even weaker signal..actually none! And they call this thing "RANGEPLUS"...I was pretty shocked.

Anyway - what I'm wondering if I can do is have my old router hooked up in it's usual spot, and have this new one hooked up a little bit closer to the front of my house. I want my old router to send off a wireless signal to the new router then have THAT router give off a signal of it's own to the front room - hopefully giving off a full/strong signal to my front room? Or use the new one giving off a signal to the old one closer...either way.

I think what this is called is a "wireless bridge" but I have NO experience doing this. I've heard about access points and from what I understand, those require a wired connection. I can't have wires running across my house like that - kinda defeats the purpose of wireless routing...

So I'm curious if it's possible to do something like this, and if so, I need some assistance in what to do to get it running. Can anyone offer me some help with this? I only have one more day to take this newer router back if I can't do this so any help ASAP would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks a ton in advance!

 

I would love to use Apple routers! I actually bought a Time Capsule and was so pumped. But one thing that gets a lot of use in my living room wirelessly is my Xbox 360 and it doesnt play nice with "N" routers so I had to take my Time Capsule back....it was a bummer.

So as far as setting this up goes....I know I can get into my routers controls by going to 192.168.1.1....but if I have 2 hooked up how do I get into the other one? attached is a snap shot of my wireless controls on the one i have hooked up now. If you see anything in there that looks helpful let me know!

I guess what I need help doing is getting the one to "talk to" the other one then have that one work an extension.

 

added a picture of my "plan" to the original post.