Reccommend me a wireless solution!

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

I've finally entered this century and have acquired myself a laptop. Now to take the full step into the year 2001 I figured I'd get the place wireless like all the cool kids have it.

Problem is, I know jack and bupkiss about wireless networking, and so I turn to you, my illucidated brethren of techno-savvy!

Here's what I've got:

A DSL connection.
A Dell XPS1210 with a Intel pro WLAN 3945 internal wireless (802.11a/b/g)
A shared apartment with potentially 4 other wireless connections.
An existing wired network from a shitty 8-port switch that services 6 machines (I think).

I'm not going to rely on this network for gaming (much) but *would* like stability. I've read a little and am wondering whether the building (apartment complex) and the amount of people (6) with their weird 2.4ghz paraphenalia (cordless phones etc) will fuck up any non 802.11.a setup?

HEPL ME OWBIWANKANOOBIE YOU MY ONLY HOP

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Bump, you bitches

[Sylvus]

I'd say just get a Linksys wireless router. It's surprisingly easy to setup, even a monkey (or a Swede) could do it. Plug it in, hit the default admin page for the router (via a wired computer plugged into it... 192.168.1.1 or whatever it is) and you'll have a couple things to change in the wireless setup. Namely what you want your wireless connection to be called, and choose which type of security you want.

Your computers with wireless should recognize it pretty easily, and you might have to set up the security on those to match your settings on the router, but I've set up at least 3 Linksys wireless routers and one Netgear without knowing at all what I was doing, and all work swimmingly.

I know that I have successfully had 3 or 4 computers using the wireless Linksys router at one of my parents' houses with no problems.

I wouldn't think that you should get too much interference, but you can tweak which frequency you want to use (if memory serves, it's which 'channel' you want, and there are somewhere around a dozen choices). My guess would be that if you do get some sort of interference, you could potentially solve that by choosing a different channel.

Alternatively, you may want to look into the newer routers with the MIMO technology, though I'm not sure if that would require you to replace your wireless nic's.

[cadalano]

Linksys is good. Tons of people use Linksys and its easy to find help for their stuff on google. Most brands have models with improved reception / distance, so you should probably just spring for one of those if it'll be serving a couple of apartments.

I used to swear by netgear and used them at home up until a few months ago. Now I'll probably never buy another netgear product again. Their router interfaces are poorly designed.. buggy.. and impossible to find support for. The wireless router that I bought from them also took a shit not too long ago, which was the last straw.

Interference will depend on the WiFi standard that you go with. And you probably need 802.11g (this is the most common standard anyway). 802.11a is pretty much immune to interference from most appliances, but it has practically zero penetration so that will not work at all for multiple apartments. 802.11b will penetrate and has the same range, but its bitrate is atrocious compared to A and G. 802.11g will penetrate walls but it will suffer interference from appliances operating on 2.4GHZ, which is fairly common in the US (no idea about Denmark?).

Personally I have a microwave and a cordless phone in the same room as my router and computers on the G standard. I haven't had a single problem with my wireless connection in over two years with the setup



The hardware/software is really easy to configure.. you can just follow the guides that the hardware comes with. The hardest part about it will probably be getting your Port forwarding etc set up, if neccesary. Depends on the applications & games that you use.. and you have to do that with a wired router anyway.

[*~*stragi*~*]

linksys is pracitaclly plug n play setup like they've said, and gives probably the best performance I've seen personally. i never had to setup any port forwarding myself, but i'm willing to wager cad has more experience than me with it!

[Neost]

The MIMO boxes pretty much take out any holes you might have in your coverage, giving you a better signal quality over a wider area than the normal WRT54G. If your place isn't very big and you won't be going through more than 1 wall you probably don't need to go to the expense of a MIMO wireless router. It's still 802.11g so you shouldn't have to change your wireless NIC. The "speedboost" technology is what requires the nic and router to be compatible. Speedboost is proprietary. A couple of others (netgear? dlink? can't remember for sure) have similar proprietary speed enhancements.

I tried a normal WRT54G without hacking the firmware at my sister's house. There cable modem is upstairs so I put the box up there. Couldn't get signal worth a damn downstairs in the dining room where she uses her laptop most of the time.

Got one of the linksys MIMO routers and she can pretty much wander through her whole house with it and never lose signal.