wireless setup

[crazythunder]

i'm by no means a computer newb, but as far as wireless setups, it's one thing i've never needed to learn, so i have a few questions. i'm getting a laptop from newegg soon. obviously i want to connect to the net wirelessly. my existing setup is as follows-- a dlink 4 port wired router with 2 pc's hooked up and one network ip camera and one video server. i don't need any of these to be wireless and would prefer to keep them wired. i also want to keep the wired dlink router as it's the only one that i can get the audio to work on the one camera. is there a way to hook up the laptop wirelessly to this existing setup? would i need an access point? one of the pc's has 2 built in lan ports, of which i'm only using one. i've read i can hook an access point up to the unused port and connect that way. is that correct? the laptop will probably not go any further than my backyard-25 feet or so. any help on a setup would be greatly appreciated. like i said, i'm no novice, but would appreciate some help in this particular area. thanks in advance.

[BJ_M]

get a 4 port wireless router - dlink also if you like it ....

about 60-70$

only way to work easy (though you could setup a gateway on one of the pcs and get a pci wireless card for it -- but not to practical really and no cheaper)

[crazythunder]

so, the ports on the wireless router can be used for my existing 4 devices, and it will still transmit wirelessly to my laptop? i thought the ethernet ports on a wireless router were just for setup. shows you how much i know about wireless setups.! how many laptops could be setup this way? i assume infinite, but would lose transfer rates for every laptop hooked up? correct? thanks for the help.

[BJ_M]

yes you use the ports for your existing pc's .....

you can hook up a lot of wireless laptops to this system, but lose speed for each one .... on a typical 54mps connection , you will really only see about 5mps real speed with 5 devices .... but that is plenty for most dsl and cable links ...

[kschang]

He-he-he. I bought a wireless router to be used ONLY as a wired router. The WRT54G in fact. Went into setup and turned off the wireless, and it's working great as a wired router.

[TooLFooL]

of course, setting up 2 routers becomes more challenging... you may have to change the default IP address on the second router, set up the second router to function as a SWITCH, not a router, and feed your connection into a LAN port, NOT the WAN port.

[SingSing]

If you are using ADSL or cable internet, chance are they can sell you a 4 port router with wireless access at $19.00 or so.

[crazythunder]

i bought an smc barricade wireless broadband router from newegg. i didn't go for the typical choice of linksys because the 8 port router i have by linksys will not transmit audio for one of my network cameras-no matter what i try. even their tech support was stumped. laptop will arrive monday. if i need any help, i'll no where to ask. thanks for all the help.

[US Guy]

FYI:

I recently bought a new Linksys WRT54GS v5 wireless router thinking (and blindly believed) that Linksys (backed by Cisco) produces excellent routers. It turned out Linksys changed the firmware of the new generations of routers which use half the RAM and dropped the Linux based OS. This new router I have is a PIECE OF JUNK. I upgraded the firmware twice - now at 1.50.8 also know as v6 and it is slight better. But it is still a PIECE OF JUNK in comparison to others such as the D-Link 524 / 624.

SMC is also going down hill in quality. My G model died, yet my B model still chucking great - this is my back up in case anything happens to my WRT54GS.

[ofbarea]

You can flash your WRT54G v.5 to DD-WRT and you end with a more capable router. The upgrade process is a bit triky, but I think you will be happy with it.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Vxworkskiller