What do I need?

dawballz

I want to go wireless, but I don't know what I need
Is it a wireless router?
A wireless access point?
What?

In my laptop there is a wireless receiver.

The way I connect to the internet now is:
There is a rj45 socket in the wall of my apartment.
I put a Cat5 cable from that to the ehternet port on my laptop and voila.


thanks. any help is appreciated.

Fobia

A LinkSys WET11 bridge would be the "ideal" solution, but these have been known to fail in almost every case after a year or two...

In terms of simply buying equipment, you could buy one of these, but as I always say, this sort of kit will crash on occasion (my own WRT54g crashes maybe once a month), but should be ok for home use as you can simply plug out the power and plug it back in again....

You'd hook the "internet port" into the ethernet port you get your broadband from, then (with a bit of setup with the http interface), you can just connect with your laptop wirelessly and use the internet...

philologos

the PCI install of the Wireless card isnt that hard. Apart from opening the dusty old Dell case to put it in. Btw the layout inside of Dell PC's is very tidy opens like a book so u can just slide the card in

Fobia

Jakkass wrote:

the PCI install of the Wireless card isnt that hard. Apart from opening the dusty old Dell case to put it in. Btw the layout inside of Dell PC's is very tidy opens like a book so u can just slide the card in

Where does it say in OP's post that he/she owns a Dell desktop, let alone wants to hook that up to wireless?

pauln

One of the Linksys Wireless Broadband routers would do nicely too and give you more flexability. Essentially it's the same as the WET11 but with a added 4 port Ethernet switch and services inside.

Mac daddy

^^^ i have the speedbooster version of this with three linksys nics with speedbooster in the server and desktop and work laptop - other laptop connects wireless

No problems with it at all easy to setup - have it all running suse 9.2 and Xp pro and Home

dawballz

One is a router and the other is an access point....
Whats the difference?

philologos

Fobia wrote:

Where does it say in OP's post that he/she owns a Dell desktop, let alone wants to hook that up to wireless?

lol w/e fobia
and yeh its a wireless router, wireless laptop card, PCI card for the desktop u need pretty much. I got the whole lot for €160 in PC World

pauln

Well the WET11 is whats hnown as a Wireless client bridge. The client bridge's job is to simple replace the cable you would normally connect with, it acts like it isn't even there, it's just like a cable.
The router on the other hand has a bit of intelligence, it connects to the outside network and then relays the data to the computer on your side that requested it.

The more I think of it, you will be better off with the router (Its what I use, infact I have two) and there is a chance the WET11 may not work as it requires an additional IP adress adsigned to it and that may cause problems with your supplier.
The router is around the same price and is more bang for your buck, it will basically setup your own internal netwprk, you can connect as many PC's to it as you want (within reason) and It won't matter, all that is seen outside is the router is connected.

Fobia

pauln wrote:

Well the WET11 is whats hnown as a Wireless client bridge. The client bridge's job is to simple replace the cable you would normally connect with, it acts like it isn't even there, it's just like a cable.
The router on the other hand has a bit of intelligence, it connects to the outside network and then relays the data to the computer on your side that requested it.

The more I think of it, you will be better off with the router (Its what I use, infact I have two) and there is a chance the WET11 may not work as it requires an additional IP adress adsigned to it and that may cause problems with your supplier.
The router is around the same price and is more bang for your buck, it will basically setup your own internal netwprk, you can connect as many PC's to it as you want (within reason) and It won't matter, all that is seen outside is the router is connected.

Although these are good reasons for getting a router over a bridge, I think that my main reason would be that a very high precentage of WET11's seem to fail after a while (look it up..).