Background: Do you use WPA encryption on your wireless network and want to play old DS games like Mario Kart DS? Many pre-DSi games don’t support WPA networks, and even if you play them on DSi or 3DS, which support WPA in their firmware, you still won’t be able to connect.

Are you using WEP or open (no) encryption, but have a fast router and are getting error code 52100? Your router’s transmission rate may be too fast for your DS, but if you change it to Nintendo’s recommended 1-2mbps, your net speed on all your computers goes down to 2mbps from the 8-10 you might pay for!
What do you do in either of these situations? I found a solution! I’m going to assume that you are using a regularDS (thought a DSi or 3DS will also work) and that you already have a router, but for a router related reason you can’t get on to Nintendo WFC on your older games, or at all. This solution will cost you, but the equipment bought is cheap, you already might have it, and it can be used for many future activities if you decide to re-purpose it!

In short, we’re going to get a second router, connect it to your first router, change the encryption, hide the network, and use MAC address filtering. Let’s begin!

Difficulty: Intermediate
SUPER IMPORTANT: This tutorial assumes you understand the basics of networking and IPs. You should know about DHCP and static IPs if you are using them. Some of the troubleshooting I’ve built-in to this tutorial if things don’t go right uses advanced terms and concepts, but if everything goes as planned you shouldn’t need to use them. I can’t be held responsible for any damages to your stuff. Proceed with caution and at your own risk. I’ll do my best to help you, but am making no guarantees that I can solve / support every problem that comes up. This is a fairly simple process, but I have written a lot to make it as accessible as possible, so it may look more complicated than it is. Either way, if you don’t know what you’re doing, DON’T do it!

Getting a second router:

If you’ve ever replaced your router, you may have saved your old one. As long as it isn’t broken, you probably won’t need to buy anything! Take a look in your closet to see if you happen to have one around. It needs to be a wireless router, either B, G, or N will do. As long as it isn’t a super, super cheap router or a cable modem / router combination, it’ll probably work.

If you don’t have a router, you can buy one for less than the price of a 3DS game! The one I’m using for this tutorial I bought at Walmart for $30: Amazon.com: Connect N150 Wireless N Router: Electronics

Putting it all together:

Here’s a sketch of what you’re going to set up:

Don’t do any of this yet. Just read. I’ll tell you when to go through with this in the next section.
First, make sure you have a spare wired “out” port on the back of your current router. If you already have all your wired ports in use, there is a more complicated setup that you can use that involves an Ethernet hub, but to keep things straightforward I’m not going to go into that. If you need help with that, I’d say to read Wikipedia’s article on Ethernet hubs Ethernet hub – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for more info.
By “out” port, I mean that there are probably 5 Ethernet ports on the back of your router. One goes in from your cable modem, the other 4 go “out” to wired devices on your LAN. You are going to make your new router a wired device on the first router. To put it another way, you’re plugging one power strip into another power strip which is plugged into a wall socket, where the power strips are routers and the wall socket is the cable modem. See how this works? Good! (If not, reply here and I’ll do my best to explain.)

Finding out your main router’s IP:

I’m going to assume you’re using Windows. If you’re on Mac or Linux, feel free to ask if you’re stuck, but I’m not going to cover it in this main text.

Open a command prompt (Start > Accessories > Command Prompt), type

Code:

ipconfig

and press enter. You’ll get an output similar to the following:

Code:

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.103
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

Take a look at that Default Gateway. It should start in 192.168… or 10.0… or something. Write it down.

Configuring the second router:

If this is an old router you are re-purposing, the first thing you’ll want to do is reset it to factory default settings. The router may include a setup disc, so keep it handy. There is usually a factory reset button on the bottom / side of your router, so get out a paperclip and press it in accordance with your router’s instructions (some require you to hold the button down for 10 seconds, but check this.)

Disconnect your computer from your main router, and if you’re using a static IP, change it temporarily to DHCP. If you don’t know what a static IP or DHCP are, you probably shouldn’t be doing this tutorial. Here’s a hint, though:

At this point, you should have a new router out-of-box, or a router that has been reset so it is good-as-new. Connect an Ethernet cord from your computer to one of your second router’s “out” ports, but first disconnect your computer from your main router! Disable wireless for this step if you have to, as I only want you working with your computer and your secondary router. Do not connect your second router to the first one yet.

Look at your second router’s instructions, and find out what its setup website is. This is also the second router’s IP, and it’ll be the default gateway of your current network connection on your computer if you connected everything right. IF IT IS THE SAME AS THE ONE YOU WROTE DOWN IN THE LAST STEP, BE CAREFUL TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE NOT CONNECTING TO YOUR MAIN ROUTER WITHOUT KNOWING IT! Also, make a note of this, as you’ll want to change it. Nearly all consumer routers have a setup website, and for my example the website is http://192.168.2.1/, or in some cases, http://router/. Open a web browser and go to the router’s setup website. It’ll ask you to log in. Usually the default username and password are “admin” and “admin”, though yours might differ. When logged in, the router should show you a setup page similar to these ones:

http://help.wildblue.net/custom/imag…een%20Shot.png

http://cdn.devicemag.com/wp-content/…nformation.jpg

http://kbserver.netgear.com/images/n101675_image001.jpg

I can’t include specific instructions for every router here, as that would be insane (and very long-winded). You are going to need to be savvy enough to find your router’s specific versions of the general topics I’m going to explain from here on out. Of course, if you are stuck, you can ask for help here!

Open a new tab in your web browser and try to access Google. You shouldn’t be able to. If you can, make darn sure you disconnected your computer and your second router from your main router! Disable 3G on your computer if you have it for this step. This tutorial will not mess with your main router, and through it, Internet access on all your computers will not be affected. I take no responsibility if anything gets fried, as you are doing this at your own risk.

The first thing you want to do only applies if your main and current router IPs are the same. I told you how to find that out above. On your router setup page, find the section that talks about your Local / LAN IP address. It should have your router’s current IP in it.

Change this value to something else, keeping 192.168.X.1, but changing X to something that isn’t the IP of your main router. Like going from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.2.1. Save the change, and then go to the new IP that you set. You should be able to access the router’s setup page from this new IP. Your computer’s IP address should automatically change to 192.168.X.Y, where X is the new value you set and Y is the physical “out” port number on your router + 1. If this isn’t the case, make sure your computer is using DHCP (auto assignment of IP addresses) as I told you to do earlier. Still not working? Ask for help here or reset your second router and try again. Another hint if it’s not working is to make sure the DHCP server settings in your router, if they don’t automatically configure themselves, have the same 192.168.X… setting in the address assignment range. I’m not going to go into that because this is already getting long-winded, and most routers do this just fine. You can always ask, though!

CONCEPT CHECK: A router generally has two IP addresses. One is for a LAN (all the devices in your home) and one is for a WAN (all the devices not in your home). The IP you’ve been working with is the second router’s LAN IP. This is a virtual home for your consoles. The WAN for your second router is the LAN of your main router. The WAN of the main router is the rest of the internet. Remember Inception? We’re dealing with a LAN inside a LAN. Multiple layers, here. Got it? Good.

Make sure your second router is set to automatically get a WAN IP address. Your main router should be configured to automatically give out LAN IP addresses, but if it’s not, you can put everything in manually. I’m going to assume though that your main router is giving out IPs automatically, and your second router is taking a WAN IP automatically. This should work the best.

Connect the “in” port on your second router to one of the “out” ports on the main router now, as described in the first section.

Go to your second router’s setup website and look for a “Status” page. You should see LAN and WAN IP values, and the WAN IP should be something in the neighborhood of the main router (e.g. 192.168.1.2). Now try going to Google again. It should work. If not, take a look at the DNS settings on your second router, and make sure the default gateway for the WAN on the second router is the IP of the first router. Make sure you can access the first router’s setup page from your computer as well. If so, that should do it for for this section! If not, do not proceed until you get this working. You can ask if stuck, as always.

Configuring your new wireless network:

Okay, the hardest part is over! You will want to make a note of the second router’s WAN IP. Write it down. Also, if your second router has a remote administration option, enable it. Nearly all do, and I’m going to assume yours does as well. It opens a specific port that allows you to access the setup website through the WAN IP. If you enable this, CHANGE THE DEFAULT ROUTER PASSWORD!

If you are using remote administration, you can return your computer to its regular internet setup. Don’t restore any static IP settings just yet, though. Connect through your main router, just like always, and make sure Google loads. Make sure it loads on other computers on the network that haven’t been modified as well. Nothing should have changed. Now go to the second router’s WAN IP through the remote administration port, and you should be back at the second router’s setup website. Nifty!

If you aren’t using remote administration, you’ll need to plug your computer in or connect to the wireless network you’ll create every time you want to change settings. This is tedious, but it isn’t terrible. I’m not going to assume you did that, though.

Go to your Wireless Network setup page on the second router’s setup website. Change the network name to something memorable but not easily guessable (ex: NintyWFC). For now, make a note of the setting for broadcasting wireless SSID, but leave it on. You’ll turn it off once everything is set up.

Now, go to the Wireless Security section. We’re going to use WEP, as that’s what the DS uses. WEP is easily crackable and highly insecure, so that’s why we’re taking precautions. It’s also why you probably use WPA on your main router. Generate a WEP key (10 characters). This will be the password you use on your DS.

Finally, take a look in your second router’s MAC Address Filtering section. You’ll want to gather a list of all your consoles and their MAC addresses, and put them in, one by one. How do you find a MAC address? The Nintendo WFC setup app in all old games has a section that lets you view it. Nintendo DS: How to Locate the Device’s MAC Address – Tech-Recipes for help with that. MAC addresses can be spoofed, but it’s unlikely an attacker will persist enough to spoof the right MAC, find the right WEP key, and figure out your SSID. It CAN be done, but we’re trying to make it as difficult as possible.

Testing it out:

The time has come to start up your DS and Nintendo WFC setup. Choose to search for an access point, pick the WEP network you just created, type the password, and if all goes well the connection test should succeed! If not, something was probably done wrong in the steps above. Ask if you’re unsure. Also, try turning off MAC filtering temporarily, and try looking around the second router’s setup for something labeled “Transmission Rate” and changing it to 1-2mbps. Don’t do this on your main router.

Now, try connecting to a WFC game. If the connection test was successful, you should be able to play your favorite games while still having WPA for all your computer data! Congratulations! Go to the second router’s setup one last time, turn off Wireless SSID Broadcast, and try connecting again. It should work. If not, try manually re-adding the network in Nintendo WFC settings, ask for help, or just leave the SSID broadcasting if you aren’t too paranoid.

Conclusion:

I hope you got at least something out of this tutorial! I’m not sure how many people suffer from the problem of WPA encryption keeping us from playing DS, but I was one and I know a few others who had similar problems. This can be a free solution if you have an old router, and since Nintendo doesn’t make wireless USB connectors anymore that’s why I didn’t just say to use those. Thanks for reading!