PG

Despite the fact I struggle to get to grips with one PC I have decided to network the house. 3 desktops and a laptop but essentially look to cover every room in the house (6)
What is all involved ? routing the cables isnt a problem (other than finding the time to do it! ) but also interested in the whole wireless thing.
I dont know the first thing about the set up so any help / pointers would be greatfully recieved.

Cheers

PG

Roland_STI

Forget cables, go wireless (802.11g).

Netgear Wireless Firewall ADSL (or cable) router = £130
Netgear PCI Wireless card = £40
Netgear PCMIA laptop card = £50

Pretty easy to set up, and unless you have lead lined walls reception will be great.

PG

So I would have 1 router in a central location in the house and the appropriate card in each PC ?

Roland_STI

yup and the router distributes the internet connection to the PCs/Laptop over the wireless network. Also have a hardware firewall in place so no hacking.

Its really easy to setup, go for it. Windows 98SE/2000/XP will be no problems. You can even encrypt the wireless so no "drive by hacking" if youre paranoid, but it hits the transfer speed a bit. I wouldnt bother personally, dont worry for now.

Roland_STI

Oh and you could make one of the PCs a file server with shared network folders so that you can access documents etc from any PC or laptop.

Scooby Dooby Blue

You should have mentioned this on the phone today m8
I could have picked up the kit (at half the above price)
Speak to you about it on Monday.


Paul

PG

you were to be my next port of call mate

jason4656

if you have an old house, with solid walls, i wouldnt expect your connection to go to far, if i had to fit another network in an older house, ill be suggesting hard cabling it for sure, the connection drops out to often and is to unpredictable. But if you are in a newer house with "thinner" walls then it should be ok

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

You will also get faster network speeds on your internal LAN with wire rather than Wireless if that is an issue to you.

Wire = 100mb
Wireless = 11 - 56mb

Unless they have developed a 100mb wireless lan card.

Roland_STI

No, 802.11g (latest wireless) is 54. Cat5 is 100. Or go for Gigabit cat6 for 1000

dsmith

Well I've gone wired throughout. takes longer but I also use the Cat5 for Voice, and other things (e.g. IR distrbution).

I like 100Meg on every port especially when moving 2gb DivX files on/off the server. You can keep your theoretical 54 meg wireless for now

Deano