Hardwired Wii network connection?

[ChadTower]

I'm just poking at this... it appears to still use a Wifi connection, but it connects to a Vista or XP PC ratherthan a Wifi router.  Haven't found an actual ethernet adapter for the Wii yet... is there one out there?  I don't run wireless at my house, though I do have a wireless capable router, and I'd rather not enable it for a Wii.

Ther e it is....  I didn't realize the Wii had a USB port on the back.

[SavannahLion]

Yeah, I saw that on Amazon too. I gave some serious thought to buying it for my Wii.

I have a PS2 and GCN with ethernet adapters and I intend to get Xbox sometime in the future. In essence, I'm going to end up snaking cable and attaching  a hub to the entertainment center for the other consoles. So why not? Less traffic on the wireless and less chance of dropping a game when the other residents of the house decide to run the microwave. But for $26?  Sheez. I'd buy it if it was an even $20, but no more than that.

[igboo]

My Wii forces me to change the Wifi channel I use to one that won't work with either of the DS's in the house.  I went and bought one of the USB to E-Net adapters which I was going to do anyway since I already have a network switch in the entertainment center.

  The Wii works great on the network, even for a short bout of Internet surfing.

[ChadTower]

But for $26?  Sheez. I'd buy it if it was an even $20, but no more than that.

$30 at Gamestop.

Anyone have anything to say about third party LAN adapters?  Good, bad?

[igboo]

I think the one I have was made by Pelican... I know it's not the Nintendo one.

Works fine.

[Samstag]

The Wii is far and away the worst wireless device I've ever tried to use.  It's only 12 feet from my router and I'm lucky when I get a consistent connection.  That's after spending 4-5 hours updating my router firmware and playing with every channel and setting to find the one that works best.  If you don't already have wireless in the house, don't waste your time on it for a Wii.

I'm going to be buying a wired USB adapter for mine.  Lots of good info on getting cheap PC adapters that work on the AVS forums.

[ChadTower]

Good info.  They say this one works, which is $13 at Fry's... but since I don't have one of those here, shipping would bring it up to around $20.  I was able to find one at Amazon from a third party for under $20 shipped, though, and since I'm already ordering Wii Play and a component cable from Amazon, that works.

Holy crap, a $1.61 component cable.

[patrickl]

The Wii is far and away the worst wireless device I've ever tried to use.

I didn't have much trouble getting it connected, but the sotware is so flakey that half of the time some channels just don't work. The internet browser, system update and shopping channels always work fine, but news, weather and wii vote seem to work at random with cryptic connection error messages. Think it got better with the last firmware update though.

[Samstag]

Good info.  They say this one works, which is $13 at Fry's... but since I don't have one of those here, shipping would bring it up to around $20.  I was able to find one at Amazon from a third party for under $20 shipped, though, and since I'm already ordering Wii Play and a component cable from Amazon, that works.

Holy crap, a $1.61 component cable.

Bargaincell isn't a real good company to deal with.  They sell a lot of junk and don't have any customer service to speak of.  I'd recommend you get it from monoprice for about the same price after shipping.

[ChadTower]

Oh well, already ordered 2... just in case one sucks.  At that price may as well.

[SavannahLion]

My Wii and the wireless connection is fairly reliable. Haven't noticed any major issues (except for the microwave)... knocking on wood of course.

What's mind numbing is the asinine method of entering the network password with the Wiimote. After the third or fourth try of flicking in the damn password, I was cursing Wii software engineers of not allowing us the absolute minimum of reading a simple text file with the code.... BAH!!! Wii practically encourages passwordless networks.

[ChadTower]

Heh.  That's one advantage to the hardwired network... don't need a password.

[MajorLag]

I only had to put in my entirely random 63 character WPA key once and it didn't seem that bad. It was probably a lot less frustrating than using any kind of d-pad or analog stick based control would have been.

[TOK]

My Wii is pretty stable at about 25' from my Netgear router, but it kicked my PSP offline.
I can see the network, have the WEP key in, but the PSP won't pull an IP either dynamically or statically. Even turned the WEP encryption completely off to test and it did the same thing.

Some evil Nintendo plot, I think. 

[ChadTower]

They're probably conflicting on the IP.  Are they both trying to use a static default?

[knave]

Once I remembered my Wireless encription key it was no problem connecting the Wii to my home network.  I've not noticed any issues at all.  Surfing, downloading, news, and weather all just "work".  Even when I moved the Wii to a location further from my router.

So far though the Wii doesn't offer a whole lot that requires a net connection.  Or is there something I'm missing.

[ChadTower]

Will a component cable make much of a difference on a standard CRT?  I'm currently running with composite connections.

Over composite, yes.  Over S-video, only slightly better.  Component pretty much eliminates signal noise and degradation for short cable runs.  Composite is bad about that.  The difference over composite will be bigger if you have a progressive scan capable TV.  I don't.  Then again, my TV needs a cap kit anyway, the screen has the familiar top of the screen lines that slowly reduce themselves as it warms up.

[Samstag]

I just got my USB ethernet adaptor in the mail from these guys based on recommendations from the AVS forum post I linked earlier.  It works great and seems to have solved all my conection problems.  I can use the Voting and Check Mii Out channels without error messages every 2 minutes now!  Sweet.

The business is a bit shady.  They get free USPS boxes and turn them inside out so they can ship via UPS.  But it was definitely $20 well-spent.

[ChadTower]

I'll see in a week whether or not the third party USB/LAN adatper I got works... it said in the desc it does.  My Wii arrived in the mail today.   

[TOK]

I just got my USB ethernet adaptor in the mail from these guys based on recommendations from the AVS forum post I linked earlier.  It works great and seems to have solved all my conection problems.  I can use the Voting and Check Mii Out channels without error messages every 2 minutes now!  Sweet.

The business is a bit shady.  They get free USPS boxes and turn them inside out so they can ship via UPS.  But it was definitely $20 well-spent.

That works on the Wii without loading drivers?

[Samstag]

I just got my USB ethernet adaptor in the mail from these guys based on recommendations from the AVS forum post I linked earlier.  It works great and seems to have solved all my conection problems.  I can use the Voting and Check Mii Out channels without error messages every 2 minutes now!  Sweet.

The business is a bit shady.  They get free USPS boxes and turn them inside out so they can ship via UPS.  But it was definitely $20 well-spent.

That works on the Wii without loading drivers?

Yeah, just plug it in and define a wired connection in the Wii setup menu and you're done.  Any adaptor with the same or compatible chipset will work.  I don't know which chipset that is as I haven't done any real research on it.  I just bought what the AVS guys were recommending.

[TOK]

Thats great info, thanks!