Possibly semi-converting a wired setup into wireless? (networking)

[Jonathan]

Well, I just moved my PC out of my little sister's room into mine;
now I remember why we put it into her room: Her closet wall is
the wall out in the kitchen by where we have the family PC connected.
Hence, hiding the wires.

However, my mom tripped and fell pretty badly due to
me having a wire across the floor (was til dad gets home to run it through the attic maybe)
and now is wanting me to look into a wireless setup.

1. Is it true that wireless connections suck, especially in
houses with mostly wireless phones, and a satilite TV?

2. Is it true that, overall, wireless connections present
a slower connection overall? Lose of download/upload speed, etc.

Now, the vital question. Is there a way I can hook a sort
of "Sender" into one of the wired points on the router, and
a "Receiver" into my wired ethernet port? So I don't have to
get a new router, new NIC cards for both PCs, etc etc.

[sdjl]

You can get yourself a wirless access point that will just plug into a port on your router.
You'd need to buy yourself a wireless access card howver for your PC. Over here in the UK they're around £15, so you could probably get them for around the same price in dollars over there.

As regards to your questions regarding speed and loss there of, i'm not really too sure about this. I don't actually have a wirless network myself but i think it could depend on what standard you go for.

David

[Pedja]

If you can to with cable do it. It is always the better solution.

Of course, do not put your cables in manner that they are obstacle and annoyance. Make them invisible.

If you insist on wireless, then do as man said, buy AP, hook it in switch and that will allow you to use wire where possible and wireless where suitable.

For wireless station you hev few solutions:

- WiFi PCI card connects into PC slot as ordinary LAN card.
- USB wiFi connects to USB
- Client AP, AP in client mode, connects to computer via UTP cable. PC must have LAN card installed.

Quality of the WiFi connection depends on many parameters and yu wil noet know how it would work until you set it up. Generally, it works. Speed is limited and it is slower than LAN. It depends on equipment but general rule is if you use equipment that is capable for higher speed it will work in shorter range and will be more sensitive to annoyance of other electrical equipment.

Also, pay attention to security. While it is hard to attach computer to your wired network without you knowing it, attaching computer to wireless network is not very hard task, even if you use encryption provided with wireles devices.

[ThomasW]

My mom got DSL about 6 months ago and the room with the PC does not have a phone jack so she asked me to get her a wireless thingy-bob.

I picked up a Linksys router and NIC (gotta 'G' one) and it seems to work really well. If you download a lot of stuff that is huge then you might want to stick with an Ethernet cable, or pick up a 50' cable when you need speed. Anyway, for day to day stuff you will not be able to tell a difference in speed.

As for security, well the new ones are pretty good about things and you can lock them down pretty well to keep them pesky neighbors from doing unsavory things.

I wish I could afford a wireless setup as I am sick of cables and being tied to the same spot (you listening Santa??).

[openbox]

Unless you have a really "noisy" house you shouldn't have any intereference problems. As for speed, unless you have a 10Mb/s or faster connection from your ISP, you shouldn't notice a speed difference either. I'm guess you currently are capable of downloading around 3Mb/s at best with your wired connection...wireless ethernet to an AP won't be your bottleneck.

[Andy]

I have a wireless network at home, and the only thing I would suggest is to secure it. I can pick up 3 other wireless networks and can access them all with default settings. I would suggest getting the neweset technology available, as I believe they have the best for security.

As for speed, they are all 11Mbps connections. When surfing the net or playing games, they are perfecting fine. I get the odd lag for a second, but thats it.

As for speed on the LAN, i noticed it slower, because I have a 10/100Mbps LAN setup and the wireless runs from 11Mbps. (Which is expected, and its still fast).

[Dan]

802.11G is up to 54mb but the further away you get it can degrade rather quickly if it's going through several walls. We have wireless I set up here at work and we have concrete walls and steel girders all over the place but only have one problem area.

If you have problems with interference from phones on the same frequency (2.4GHz I believe it is) you can change the channel on the access point and that should fix it right up.

Security wise most likely anything you buy will support both WEP and WPA. We use WEP here as I have not been able to get WPA to work at all on our AP which is a D-Link DI-624. But that's the only problem we have had. This particular AP is also the 'Extreme G' version meaning it will enable a dual channel G transfer giving (theoretically) up to 108MB of throughput when you also have an Extreme G card connecting to it. We have these and they work good, very minimal problems.

Hope that helps!

[-Oz-]

I love my wireless network (802.11b). Its plenty fast and works great. I also have the entire thing secured, make sure you do that.

[Jonathan]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...124-105&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...124-103&depa=0

Those two will work together with my wired Belkin router, correct? All I do is
plugin the access point to the router, and then the Adapter into one of the USB slots on my computer?

Define "noisy"; if you mean three Satilite boxes (one in same room as this),
plus my little sister having just discovered the phone.. (cordless [not the newer 2.4GhZ sort]) then yes.

So I won't get lag in video games @all? One wall between me and
the access point won't effect it? Thanks all for replying.

I hope Santa's listening

[ChrisTech]

Each wireless setup seems to differ from the last. Most of it depends on your house itself. New/old (ie. does the walls block the signal?).

I did a setup on one about a month ago, the router is in the basement, and one laptop in kitchen, and a pc on the 2nd floor. Didn't work with the netgear equipment, switched to dlink and it worked fine. (ie the pc upstairs didn't get a signal with netgear router/usb card, but worked fine with a dlink router/usb card).

Granted I've only worked on a total of 4 wireless networks (setup 3). But that's my experience with them so far.

If you know someone with a wireless router, see if you can't borrow it from them first, to check out how it will be in your house.

[Jonathan]

Each wireless setup seems to differ from the last. Most of it depends on your house itself. New/old (ie. does the walls block the signal?).

I did a setup on one about a month ago, the router is in the basement, and one laptop in kitchen, and a pc on the 2nd floor. Didn't work with the netgear equipment, switched to dlink and it worked fine. (ie the pc upstairs didn't get a signal with netgear router/usb card, but worked fine with a dlink router/usb card).

Granted I've only worked on a total of 4 wireless networks (setup 3). But that's my experience with them so far.

If you know someone with a wireless router, see if you can't borrow it from them first, to check out how it will be in your house.

Saddly, I don't know anybody with one Homeschooled != lots of friends
EDIT: On 2nd thought, I do know someone with a network; not sure if its wireless, but their mom has worked on my PC in the paste + went to school for networking and networking security I think.

Anyways, its a 20-something year old house, my room is sort of
a "add on"; there's a concrete wall between me and the router,
since I suppose this used to be the outside wall.

[ChrisTech]

Might have a problem with it being an "outside" all, or it might not. Luck of the draw for wireless I still think. If I had a laptop with wireless on it, I'd be more into it, but with 2 pcs of mine, and one other in the house, hard wire is much simpler for the time being. That and the router and the one pc is on opposite sides of the house.

[ThomasW]

Just remember for only $99 the good people of CompUSA will install your wireless network for you.


Actually as long as you buy something you can always buy one and if you are not happy with it swap it out for something else without getting tagged for a restocking fee at places like Office Depot the first NIC i got would not work on my moms (and Sanjay could not help me).

[Jonathan]

Just remember for only $99 the good people of CompUSA will install your wireless network for you.


Actually as long as you buy something you can always buy one and if you are not happy with it swap it out for something else without getting tagged for a restocking fee at places like Office Depot the first NIC i got would not work on my moms (and Sanjay could not help me).

Really? Including the router, NIC cards, etc.?
Something to think about.. I think the local PC shop,
which has been the absolute best IMHO, does network setups.

It may wait, depends on who's bankrolling the conversion..
If its me, its backseat to everything else on my "must have / buy [for me/others]" list.

// Btw, is it just me or does anyone else notice something odd
// About the forums? Check the reply screen...

[ThomasW]

Oh no..they will just install it, nothing more...