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| Sephroth57:
I just got cable internet at my house yesterday (finally!) and its cool as hell. Its hooked up just to my computer right now but I need to hook it up to my sisters computer too. whats a good brand thats not too expensive for this type of setup? also will putting her computer on my cable with a router, make us networked also? or is that a different thing altogether? |
| screaming:
--- Quote from: Sephroth57 on February 13, 2004, 09:57:05 am ---whats a good brand thats not too expensive for this type of setup? --- End quote --- Linksys is probably the de-facto in home networking. If you definitely want wireless, plan on spending about $50 more for the router and about $75 more for each connected computer, for the wireless network card. Wired is so much cheaper, faster, and less complicated to set up that wireless. If you can go the wired route, I'd recommend it. Wireless technology is still emerging and being developed, so you'll have to keep up on it as it approaches it's stable horizon in order to keep yourself from being 'hacked'. That said, if you want wireless, I recommend a Linksys WRT54G. It's a wireless router/gateway that plugs into your Cable/DSL modem and all your computers connect to it. It even has 4 100baseT wired connections for when you need them. This is what I have and it works great! For wireless network cards, sticking with the same name brand as your "access point", in this case your router/gateway, is always a good idea. Go for a Linksys WMP54G (PCI) or a Linksys WUSB54G (USB) for your desktop computers, or the Linksys WUSB54G (USB) or the Linksys WPC54G (PCMCIA) for any notebooks. Back about 3 months ago, linux had a problem with my WPC54G on my laptop, so I had to downgrade to the 'b' version (WPC11), but I hear the 'g' version works now. FYI. For a quick comparison of the different wireless standards ('b' vs 'g' vs 'a'), check out this table on Linksys' site. Here's a decent (somewhat long) overview of wireless technology, if you're interested. If you want to go the wired route, get a Linksys BEFSR41 router/gateway. Any standard ethernet network card will do in your PC. --- Quote from: Sephroth57 on February 13, 2004, 09:57:05 am ---also will putting her computer on my cable with a router, make us networked also? or is that a different thing altogether? --- End quote --- No, they're the same thing. If you're both connected to the same aforementioned router/gateway then you both will be able to see each other on your own private network, even if one is wireless and one is wired (which is cool, and by 'cool' I mean totally sweet). /Steve |
| Sephroth57:
thanks for the info, i found some decent prices looking through pricewatch. gonna go with the "b" type wireless, found a router and PCI card for like 80$ together, not a bad deal. Ill probably get another card soon so put in my arcade machine for ROMs transfer |
| arizonacats:
My 2 cents on the topic... Don't get a Microsoft wireless router (base station as they call it). I should have gone with my instinct and bought the LinkSys myself, but Circuit City wa having a great sale on the MS brand so I fell for it. To me, it's been nothing but trouble. I finally got it all working fine, but it drops signal all the time (a MS USB wireless receiver) from about 15 feet away and I can't get other brands to work much at all. If I had it all to do over again, I'd stick with LinkSys as I've had good experiences with them before. |
| mahuti:
Having been wireless for several years now, I would suggest the following. ABSOLUTELY get G (mixed) wireless. Linksys makes an excellent router, with great web interface setup. Linksys & netgear also make good cards which are fairly easy to set up. The reason I say go with G? It only costs about $20 more for the router, and it's about 5 times as fast, the cards aren't much pricier, either. If you are tranferring large files between 2 wireless machines via B, it's gonna be really slow (and if you tranfer a bunch of roms... it's gonna be slow) ALSO, when you get the linksys router, there is one that is ONLY wireless, and one that has 4 ethernet spots. Get that one, so you can plug machines straight in if you want to. BTW, I've been using the linksys with a mixed network of Macs, & PCS with win 98, 2000, & XP, wired and wireless and everything runs great. Port mapping is easy to configure too. My mother-in-law bought one, and installed it with little problems as well. It's a good unit. |
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