Wireless Woes

[scottyb]

Good Evenin all. my names scott, i was tasked with the job of setting up a wirless network in our house. i'm on VM 20 mb service. my parents bought a belkin router which was fine on a laptop wirelessly, but i couldn't get it to work either wired on my xbox or wirlessly. so after countless failed attempts at fixing the dropping connection i gave up, and my mum bought a Dynamode br 6004wgn router from the virgin media website. i can't be bothered trying to set up something i havent heard of before so i'm looking to get another wireless router. i have been looking at the linksy WRT54G. i dont really want to change the firmware or anything, i just want to be able to have a wireless signal going round the house and be able to plug my ethernet cable into the back of the router for the xbox. i have three floors in my house, the surfboard modem is currently up on the top floor. my plan was to run an ethernet cable from that, onto the middle floor where i'd plug it in the new wireless router. that means the parents could have a good signal down stairs in the living room, and my bedroom would be even better. thanks for reading this far, my only question is will the linksy do what i want it to, i'll probably set it up on my laptop which has vista on it, will that matter?

thanks in advance

scotty

[Scrubbs]

to the forum

While you are waiting, you might want to have a search of the site to get info about the router and runnung things wirelessly

[scottyb]

thanks for replying. i found the site really useful so far, should i have any issues in the future i know were to come

[MovedGoalPosts]

Router's are generally independent of the operating system on your computer, be that Windows, Linux or even mac. In most cases you do not need to load any software onto your computer, for the router to function correctly. Control of the router settings is simply by use of your browser such as internet explorer or firefox, in the case of the linksys you would simply type "192.168.1.1" into your browser's address bar to log into the router controls.

Set up of any router should be simple. Power off computers and modem. Connect ethernet between modem and router and then ethernet between router and a computer. Now power up modem, let settle, then router and finally PC. Now you can configure the router's wireless stuff by logging in as above.

The need for software to be installed on your computer is generally limited to the network card that you are using on the computer. If the cards wired and / or wireless was supplied with your computer, then the drivers are probably already loaded. If you are adding a card, then you will need to follow the installation software routine for the card. wired cards generally will just connect. Wireless connections need to be configured, using the installed software on the connecting computer (or games console), to suit the router's settings.

A central location in a house for a router is often best and clearly a wired connection can be more stable than wireless. Wireless interference can occur from neighbouring connections (you can try a different channel), and household electrical appliances so some experimentation with location can be a good thing.

It's always worth checking that you have the current version of the firmware loaded on any router. I'd have a look at your current ones and see if that improves stability before buying yet another. You say you are not looking to mess with the firmware, but current patching is always good.