What is the best way to go fully wireless??

[ikthius]

OK for me that is......

I got a linksys WRT54G wireless router.

I got 2 desktop computers running on this router wired, and I got my Wii connected wirelessly.

now my main question, as I am not up to speed with the technology, is:
what should I get for my desktop computer to go wireless as I do not have any wireless network card in the computer? Bearing in mind I want cheap and reliable.

I have an NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Controller, Windows XP SP3 & Linux

can anyone point me in the right direction

ik

edit: this is for to move my PC to my room, not near the modem & router

[Kevin T]

Any 54g compatible NIC will do.

e.g. http://www.ebuyer.com/cat/Wireless/s...rs---PCI-Cards

[altis]

cheap... reliable... wireless...

[Kevin T]

Originally Posted by altis

cheap... reliable... wireless...

Well, mine is...

[ikthius]

does it need to be a card?

so would the linksys be the best option as I have got a linksys, mind you I am not a fan of belkin, I find they are not reliable enough and difficult to set up

ik

[Kevin T]

You could get a USB dongle, but they're not supposed to be as good as far as range goes I believe.

http://www.ebuyer.com/cat/Wireless/s...Adapters---USB

[ikthius]

is there anyway without opening up my comp I can check if I have the facility to add the card, or would it be a case of swapping over the network cards?

ik

[Richy99]

Originally Posted by Kevin T

You could get a USB dongle, but they're not supposed to be as good as far as range goes I believe.

http://www.ebuyer.com/cat/Wireless/s...Adapters---USB

the usb adapter is better imo as you can move it about more to find a better signal

[popper]

Originally Posted by ikthius

OK for me that is......

I got a linksys WRT54G wireless router.

I got 2 desktop computers running on this router wired, and I got my Wii connected wirelessly.

now my main question, as I am not up to speed with the technology, is:
what should I get for my desktop computer to go wireless as I do not have any wireless network card in the computer? Bearing in mind I want cheap and reliable.

I have an NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Controller, Windows XP SP3 & Linux

can anyone point me in the right direction

ik

edit: this is for to move my PC to my room, not near the modem & router

& Linux , is your main concern, you need to make sure whatever you get is listed as having a driver for Linux...

depending on weather your get a PCI or USB device doesnt really matter (other than the slight overhead of USB not using DMA and so takes slightly more CPU time) nore the brand as such, its the chipset you need to consider
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Devices
gives a good list for both types...

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/w...ess_Networking
http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/wireless/

and many others links search on "linux wireless"

"Bearing in mind I want cheap and reliable"
this dictates that you buy 11g (aka 54Mbps) not 11g+ or the other variants, but be aware, no matter what it says on the packet, it will NOT give you 54Mbit/s real speeds ,not even close, 22 Mbit/s is your real Max throughput, and even then not that if you turn on any security options in the router....WRT54G and the other 11g kit are good solid bits of kit but most do not have the CPU power to provide that advertised best case lab speeds.... but thats ok as long as you know this.

longer term you might be better to get some PCI 11N cards for the PCs (im not sure about current Linux drivers for them though) and later update your router to a new 11n spec, preferably somethng thats also got a 1gig wired router/switch included, but the cheaper wireless 11n with 100Mbit wired ports are fine too....if you can live with 100Mbit wired pc to pc transfer speeds that is

11n devices will talk to the the older 11g wireless routers
(is part of the spec )but its always good to try and lookup any device you are thinking of buying locally, to see if theres a writeup testing it against 11g connectability etc.


so as Kevin said, any 11g will do, but look up its chipset to make sure its in the linux lists of available drivers, your looking at an average of 18Mbit/s real throughput for 11g if theres not to many wireless devices around your area, but perhaps much less, certainly below the 20Mbit VM wired line you probably get outside STM....

and if the 50Mbit VM ever comes to pass in 11n's lifetime, then again that could manage the full VM 50Mbit, 11g will not even if your lucky and it comes close to the current 20Mbit VM line speed....

buying 11N now is probably the better long term bet if you can find out about the linux driver situation, and matching brand kit is always the better option no matter what 11n you get long term.

mixing 11n wireless routers with older existing 11g PCI/USB cards are the better mix if you really need to do that in the short term for your current kit, but you are the oposite, and so the bottleneck is probably still the CPU on the 11g wireless router in this case, if you get 11n PCI/USB cards to start you off....


one last point, it might be a good idea to make sure anything you buy has detachable arials, that way you could replace the generic 2/3 DBi ones with higher DBi direction 3rd party ones like in the mapins shops to help boost your signal on longer runs or lots of walls to get through... every extra 3 DBi gained equates to double the distance traveled or better signal in the shorter range etc.

the higher the DBi gain the better the signal, is the general rule.

this ones good, i use them myself, but the leads very short so keep that in mind...


http://www.maplin.co.uk/search.aspx?...enu=y&doy=14m7

and another general rule is put your wireless routers as high as possible to get better coverage.

[ikthius]

Originally Posted by popper

snip.

well I am on the 10mb just now and I share the connection with my brother who plays poker all day long.

I am just looking for something just now as I dont expect this computer to last anotehr 4 years. Plus in the near future I will want to get a new computer. so something simple just now would suit.

ik

[v0id]

to go FULLY wireless, get mobile broadband

[popper]

yeah, but the lads school orange 3G at an average 3 to 4 Mbit/s down and 200Kbit up is such a bore, they should have used manchesters Wimax kit and been done....

[brundles]

I might have missed it, but the main question I have is why do you want to change from wired to wireless?

As a general rule, although I do use wireless, I try and keep the network as wired as possible. Wireless bandwidth tends to be much more limited - especially when sharing the bandwidth out among multiple PCs.

Lots of good info from popper (as usual!) - the only thing I'd add to it that I didn't see from a high level skim of the pages that I can recommend is NDISWrapper - essentially a way of using Windows driver files to get wireless cards without Linux drivers working.

[popper]

Originally Posted by ikthius

well I am on the 10mb just now and I share the connection with my brother who plays poker all day long.

I am just looking for something just now as I dont expect this computer to last anotehr 4 years. Plus in the near future I will want to get a new computer. so something simple just now would suit.

ik

sure it will, stick a FreeNAS liveCD on it and fill it with HD's for another 4 years use

yeah, so your only real problem is making sure any 11g you buy has got linux drivers.

hm, how far has this wireless router got to go, and through what, if its a generic house PC in the lounge, going through wood flooring to the next floor or loft, then 30 feet in that case should be easy, cement and re-enforced steel floors are another problem as is large radiators that reflect the wireless signals...

regarding the spare slot....

is your PC gfx card in a AGP slot, as in, your looking at the back of the towerPC case, and you can see a lots of PCI cover plates and the Gfx card is in the top set of these, and the next two below it have the coverplate in place ?....

im assuming an average PC motherboard with 3 PCI slots, if you have the first 3 top slots covered by these plates than you probably have an empty PCi slot you can put the wireles PCI card into, but its an educated guess.... so keep that in mind.

USB and a short USB extension is always a good thing, you can even buy powered 5 meter USB extensions and stick upto 3 of them together if your lucky, so theres always ways to make that USB wirless device work werever you want to put it, but OC thats the extream case. but i do like giving all the options available to help users keep their options open

[altis]

More useful wireless advice here:

http://www.solwise.co.uk/wireless-24.htm