I haven’t tried to set this up yet, since I’m worried it’s going to be one of those complicated things that has me learning – by necessity – far more about routers than I ever hoped to know. So maybe some of you can tell me what I’m in for.
I have a router hooked up to my DSL modem. I have all my computers hooked into my router. Easy enough. However, I can’t string a LAN line out to my Xbox to set up Xbox Live without going under rugs, around fireplaces, past windows, and so forth. So I have here a wireless router and a receiver (bridge).
Can I hook two routers up to one DSL modem? Do I just plug the wireless router into one of the regular router’s ports? Or does a router need to feed directly into the modem? Is there any easy way to have a home network both wired and wireless?
Option 1) Replace your existing router with the wireless router
Option 2) Plug the wireless router into the non-wireless router, turn off all the routing on the wireless router, and have it just do bridging.
Plugging both routers into the DSL modem probably won’t work. Most ISPs give you only one IP address (my ISP, Sonic.net, will give you up to 4 static IPs at no extra charge, but that’s rare).
Option 1) Replace your existing router with the wireless router
At the cost of six more bridges? Not likely. :(
Option 2) Plug the wireless router into the non-wireless router, turn off all the routing on the wireless router, and have it just do bridging.
Rats, this is what I was afraid of. I guess if it’s just a matter of toggling something in the admin panel, I could have them both set up and just switch over to wireless when I want to use Xbox Live.
No, it’s easier than you think. It’s a one-time toggle. Just leave the wirelss router plugged into your switch/wired router with DHCP and router functions disabled. Then it just becomes a wireless access point.
If you don’t have enough ports on the router to leave it connected, get a second, small switch. Five port switches cost about $25 these days. Plug the switch into the router, and you get a net four ports.
When you say “wireless router” I was thinking that it could do normal routing also. These are fairly common thing – like this which has 4 ports on it as well as the antenna.
Give us model numbers of your networking gear, and we can tell you what your stuff can do, and what you can bring back, throw away, or sell on ebay.
Doh, it does do wired routing as well. Allow me to smack myself on the forehead. Also, my connection seems a lot zippier through this router. Cripes, could my antediluvian LinkSys router have been a bottleneck for me all this time?
I just ran 30 some odd feet of Cat 5 through the basement from my router to the Xbox in the living room, up through the hole that the cable and other stuff goes through. The worst part was fishing through the walls. I already have one PC hooked in via WiFi (my wife’s) but for some reason I wanted a hard connection for the Xbox. Dunno why, I never use Xbox live.
Not to hijack Tom’s thread but I’ve got bucks in my pocket and I’m about to purchase a wireless access point, an antenna for one desktop, and a wireless card for my notebook. Any last minute suggestions before I make the purchase? (Access point rather than router because my router is upstairs with the main machine and the cable modem, machines for which I want to use the wireless are downstairs and I want to just plug the access point in to the ethernet cable that’s already running downstairs so it will be closer to those machines.)
Wireless is quite a bit of an art still. So be prepared to mount the router in funny ways and try different pieces of hardware. The ZDNet labs now, when testing wireless gear, mount the pieces on lazy susans and rotate them to test them.
My roomate had some wireless gear, and various combinations of manufacturers didn’t seem to work well together, while others did.
I mean, its radio. Of course its going to be wierd.
Jeff, I don’t have personal experience with 802.11G vs. B, but a lot of folks online report much better range with 802.11G notebook cards and desktop NICs than with the older 802.11B stuff. I don’t claim to know why, but that’s what I’ve been reading.
This advice worth exactly what you paid for it. :)
Just a bit of advice for those of you swapping in new routers. I was stymied for two hours, unable to figure out why the new router wasn’t ‘taking’. I couldn’t get the computers to get onto the internet or even access the router’s controls.
It turns out that the DLink router uses internal IPs of 192.168.0.x. I had thought all internal IPs were supposed to be 192.168.1.x. I wasn’t aware that third number could vary.
I’m sure that’s a ‘no duh!’ for some of you, but it ate up two hours of my Wednesday.
Yeah wireless is still a little tricky. The room where I normally have the laptop is nearly on the other side of the house to where the access point is, and it has to go through quite a few walls and the furance to get there. Typically if I point the antenna I can there, but the connection never maxes at 54mb, usually I can get a good max at 22-24 or so. Funny thing is, if I just slide my laptop around a little, it fluctuates wildly between 5 and 36mb, so sometimes I have to find the day’s “sweet spot”.
If you’re in the same room or the next room through a regular wall you shouldn’t have much of a problem. The way I’m set up I guess I really need a wireless booster but I don’t feel like spending the money.
