Wireless Network Help

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 12:11 pm

You may have seen from a previous thread that I have just ordered a new laptop from Dell. It is due arrive on Wednesday.

The laptop comes with a Wifi card (Dellâ„¢ Wireless 1370 802.11b/g Mini PCI Card). My desktop presently uses broadband via a simple USB modem - Alcatel Speedtouch. It is running WinXP Pro (not SP2 though so no USB2). I have no idea about networks but what I would like to be able to do is to use my laptop to access the internet from anywhere in the house including the garden. I would prefer to do this without having to have the desktop switched on. I would also like to be able to transfer files when they are both switched on.

I would be grateful if someone would could let me know what kind of hardware I require. I'll probably buy from http://www.dabs.com or http://www.ebuyer.co.uk and would prefer to spend no more than £50 (do know if that is realistic). May also use PC World if they are competitive.

Thanks

Stewart
P.S. My house is very small as is the garden.

r055 · Post by **r055** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:18 pm

in my experience Stewart, you're better to buy a wireless router/ modem from your broadband provider.
If you are not an IT geek and something goes wrong, the usual indian call centre will not be very helpful with hardware that is not theres.

Wireless networks are great when they are up and running, but a complete ball breaker when something goes wrong.

I used to have a belkin 54G wireless router and modem, but I switched to BT's own home hub and I've not had nay problems since.

heres my 2p

Ross

Lazydonkey · Post by **Lazydonkey** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:27 pm

Whilst i agree with Ross to a certain extent Linksys stuff is usually easy to sue and they have free 24/7 support manned by amercians who actually know what they're talking about

Dominic · Post by **Dominic** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:46 pm

I got a free wireless Modem from Orange, through my mobile phone contract. Wireless Modem plugs into BT line, and you get free broadband (although you need an orange mobile phone contract too). Lap tops paired up to it fairly easily and been good to use. When ever I switch my Dell laptop on in any office, it will usually find a few wireless networks it can link to, and get on the web... although not sure how safe / legal that is?

Sanjøy · Post by **Sanjøy** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:56 pm

Linksys
http://tinyurl.com/y22nqu

Netgear
http://tinyurl.com/y7rchk

Piece of wee to sort and if you get stuck you aint far and I would happily pop down in return for some jaffa cakes.

Plenty on ebay, could even get a usb wireless doofer for your desk PC and shift it away from the router should you really want to.

You can even "share" your printer on your desk PC and as long as it is switched on and at the login prompt you can hit print on the slaptop in the garden and it will print!

gorrie · Post by **gorrie** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:31 pm

£50 will struggle to get you a decent brand new Wireless Router with Modem. If you were on Cable/DSL... then £50 would probably do the trick... but sounds like you are on BT/ADSL (or another provider).

A used one via Ebay is probably your best bet... don't get 11Mbps... there should be plenty of 54Mbps units up for grabs where people have upgraded to 108Mbps.

Bottom line, all you need is a Wireless Router with Built-In Modem suitable for ADSL. However, you then need to think about getting one with good security. WEP is crackable fairly easily.

If you are a gamer... and use PS2 for instance, then get one with a fairly configurable firewall so you can open whatever ports you need to.

If you plan on using it for work (with VPN for instance), I'd recommend you ensure you get one with IP Sec/VPN Passthrough.

I bought a Linksys ages ago that apparantly supported VPN Passthrough... but if I used VPN, the thing would only stay up for 30mins and then reset. Fine in normal use though.

I'm using some crappy 'ActionTec' now... but they are all realy simple to set up.

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:41 pm

Sanjoy and Andrew

That is exactly the kind of info I was after. I may have a punt on eBay for something. I shall stick to the well known brands.

I am on a BT ADSL line (with Newnet). Did think about switching to BT as I think they do a homehub thingy. My brother has this and it seems ok, but can't really be bothered shifting.

Hopefuly I will manage to sort it all out, not a complete IT numpty but know hee haw about networks.

Cheers

gorrie · Post by **gorrie** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:47 pm

No worries... I was a comms engineer previously... but primarily on Voice (call centres) rather than Data networks.

It's fairly logical though.

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 7:46 pm

Just bought a Netgear DG834G wireless ADSL router of eBay clicky for £26. Hopefully it will do the trick.

k12chu · Post by **k12chu** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 8:00 pm

stewart,
if u r looking at a good deal, u probably might want to go thru this site before u jump into anything.
http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk
i have a connection from madasafish (formerly IC24). am quite happy with their service. am paying about 16.99/month and they have also given me a free website domain and 2 extra emails with the domain and with about 5GB storage. if u r interested lemme know. i might be able to get u a 10er discount for introducing a new customer. ( vaguely remember seeing a mail from them earlier). and oh the internet speed is 8mb. i just downloaded a 131mb video in about 4 minutes or so.
krishnan

Post by **campbell** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 1:04 am

Stewart,

If I can manage a home wireless network, anyone can

Albeit I've had some help from one or two in this community, not least Jedi Master Robin.

But most kit does indeed setup really easily out of the box and it's only when you start getting into advanced configs for gaming, work VPN passthrough, etc, that it can require some "knowledge". But of course, that's what Google is for!

I have telewest cable broadband, so the devices and setups are slightly different for me but the general principles are the same for all broadband types. Just pay attention to the security options, so that the neighbours don't hop onto your broadband link for free! You only need a couple of very simple restrictions on mac address access lists etc to ward off all but the very very most persistent wifi hacker.

A reputable brand of kit is all you need - Netgear is wot I use, but other popular ones will be fine. I'd be tempted just to buy new from Dabs or similar - as I did - the latest stuff is not particularly expensive and things have come a long way in a couple of years in terms of firmware updates and "lessons learned" about the emerging wireless standards. It's all pretty stable now, I think

All the best

Campbell

Sanjøy · Post by **Sanjøy** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:14 am

Stewart wrote:Just bought a Netgear DG834G wireless ADSL router of eBay clicky for £26. Hopefully it will do the trick.

Good bit of kit I have the model sans wireless as i ru na seperate access point.
With the above I use it for browsing, FTP/gaming server port redirection, VPN in and out and it also support dyndns.org where you can have your own free domain name and any time your IP changes at your router it automatically updates the dns. Useful if you host a website or want to be able to ftp home remote control home PC etc.

SP

Sanjøy · Post by **Sanjøy** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:18 am

Also worht mentioning that with Sky offering "free" broadband to all of its customers they will soon find out they can only use the sky router (netgear) and will have a redundant router kicking about so expect ebay to start to flood.

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:40 am

Cheers guys. No doubt I'll be back on midweek asking for more assistance in setting it up! As Campbell says Google is your friend.

Stewart

tigger2 · Post by **tigger2** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 4:10 pm

Stewart wrote:Just bought a Netgear DG834G wireless ADSL router of eBay clicky for £26. Hopefully it will do the trick.

I just got this one yesterday after spending an hour in pc world arguing black was white that the belkin G+ router that i had was faulty. That belkin one was second one i had had cos the first one gave up the ghost a week past wednesday so took it back on the friday and got another one no problem the guy was fine about exchanging it for another so i went of happy, got it home and tried getting it to work but no it wasnt for working so off i went back to pc world again yesterday only to stand in the customer service queue for over an hour and the guy then tried to tell me that getting two of the same wireless routers thats are faulty is like 1 in a million and told me it would have been something i have done and that it would work fine. I stood my ground and told him well it looks like i am that 1 in a million so he took it behind the counter and tested it and low and behold he couldnt get the thing to work either, he then tried to tell me that he didnt have the time to keep trying and told me to go pick another one, he obviously didnt want to turn round to me and tell me i was right cos he would look like a right twat with him being the one who is supposed to know his pc's and stuff and me being the numpty who knows basically sweet FA about all that kinda stuff so i went and got the Netgear DG834GT. Came out with an extra tenner in my pocket cos the numpty didnt check the reciept to see that i should have paid 20 quid but only charged me a tenner

rant over about pc world