Home › Forums › Archives › Computer Support › Computer Support Discussion › Wireless Routers
- This topic has 14 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 10 months ago by Bigmar1215.
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October 5, 2006 at 9:58 pm #25176AwesomeSauceParticipant
First of all, I have been extremely excited for the Wii which is launching on November 19th. For those of you people who haven’t been following the news on this amazing new system, it has the ability to connect to the internet by communicating with your current network/router, whether by wireless router, standard ethernet cable, or the USB WiFi dongle for the DS.
Internet access for my Wii is a must-have, of course, so I can browse the web and play online games. But at first I thought of a few problems. First of all, I don’t have a wireless router (yet). Second, I don’t want an ethernet cable running up the stairs and through the house, and I’m not drilling holes in my walls anytime soon either.
So I thought that I would probably just get the WiFi dongle so I can plug it into my computer’s USB port and have internet access that way…
..but now I am rethinking. At 39.99, Nintendo’s quick USB WiFi fix is a bit pricey, and I realize that for that price I could probably get a decent wireless router which is probably faster and would give a greater coverage area.
Before I ask what brand/model of router is of good quality and inexpensive, I want to know what I would have to go through to set it up. Looking at the back of my current Actiontec router (or “gateway”), the setup seems pretty simple: a LINE IN, and four line-outs, half of which are occupied by my two web-enabled machines. The question is not how difficult it would be to wirelessly connect another machine with a network adapter, but just how hard it would be to set up the wireless router itself. Would I simply have to unplug the cables from my current gateway and plug them into the new router? Or would I also have to install a bunch of new software and the like?
And then, yes, I would like some recommendations for what kind of router I can get. I don’t want to spend over 40 bucks, although I’ll pay 50 if i really have to.
I hope someone can answer these questions, as I do not know much networking. Thanks. 🙂
October 5, 2006 at 10:14 pm #153033dvelez1985Member*omit*
October 5, 2006 at 11:20 pm #153028Hurricane22491MemberI have a Netgear router. I’ve tried Linksys, Belkin, and D-Link but none of them worked well so I kept bringing them back and exchanging for others until the Netgear. I haven’t had any problems with, and it looks better than the others too. Unfortunately, it was $60 when I bought it a year and a half ago. You might be able to find it for cheaper now, or if you can wait, look for deals after Thanksgiving.
October 6, 2006 at 12:29 am #153025TigerbladeParticipanti have a Linksys WRT54G, and for the most part it works just fine. every once in a while it just disconnects me for no apparent reason, but it’s rare enough that it’s not a problem.
if you’re looking to spend no more than $50 on a router, then your best bet is eBay. Most routers run upwards of $60. Mine cost me exactly $50, only because I got it when they ran a special sale using a $20 rebate.
October 6, 2006 at 12:45 am #153029AwesomeSauceParticipantTigerblade;208520 wrote:i have a Linksys WRT54G, and for the most part it works just fine. every once in a while it just disconnects me for no apparent reason, but it’s rare enough that it’s not a problem.if you’re looking to spend no more than $50 on a router, then your best bet is eBay. Most routers run upwards of $60. Mine cost me exactly $50, only because I got it when they ran a special sale using a $20 rebate.
The WRT54G is what I’ve been thinking about getting, as it seems to be very popular and it’s only $50 on Amazon.com.
But I still remain wondering about setup. Do I simply unplug the cables from my current router and put them into my new router? Err, well, of course you have to go to the browser page and do a quick configuration.. but is that all? If so, then I just might get one of these. I’m a young teenager without a steady source of income, so a $50 wireless router isn’t exactly an impulse buy. But since this particular model is popular and as long as I know what I’m doing, I might just have one of these come November 19th, the Wii launch day (Or a month later, for my birthday).
October 6, 2006 at 2:02 am #153026TigerbladeParticipantsetup is basically as easy as taking the line in from whatever internet source you have (cable modem, dsl modem, whatever) and plugging it into the input jack. any physical cables you want to run to other computers can be plugged into one of the four outbound jacks. the wireless is pretty much set to go straight out of the box, but you’ll want to configure it somewhat. at the very least, you’ll want to change the username and password away from their default values of ‘admin’
fire up a browser, go to 192.168.1.1, and go through the tabs one by one. they’re pretty self-explanatory… if you don’t know what something is, you probably don’t need to change it.
October 7, 2006 at 4:00 am #153034dvelez1985Member*omit*
October 7, 2006 at 4:31 am #153030AwesomeSauceParticipantThanks you guys! That’s about all I really needed to know. I appreciate it.
November 6, 2006 at 11:48 pm #153031AwesomeSauceParticipantToday I recieved my Linksys WRT54G from Amazon, and I immediately began to set it up. It was a pain in the you-know-what, but I finally got it to work properly.
Actually, I can’t say that setting it up really sucks. It only sucks if you don’t know what you’re doing. Whenever I made an error, I realized what I did wrong which led to me actually getting everything to work.
All in all, I am extremely happy now. 🙂 I can’t wait for the Wii to come out so I can test it.
May 7, 2007 at 2:44 pm #153036Bigmar1215MemberI have a WII and a PSP and I woild like to know which router I can buy that will support both?
May 7, 2007 at 3:07 pm #153023DavidParticipantThe Wii and PSP both support standard 802.11b networking, so you can buy anything that is 802.11b complient (Which is anything 802.11b/g) – I would suggest the Linksys WRT54G, however almost anything will work just fine.
May 7, 2007 at 9:34 pm #153035.ClintParticipantI’ve got another vote for the Linksys WRT54G! It was a little difficult to set up, because I found you had to use the cables they gave you, in the order they gave you, because one was a tiny bit bigger than the other, and it kept getting stuck. Perhaps it was just a problem with the one I set up, but once it was set up it works great.
It worked fine with my PSP and with my laptop, and it would also work with the Wii. Really, almost any router will work, but your best bet is to go with something reliable and well known like the Linksys WRT54G.
Clint
May 7, 2007 at 9:37 pm #153024DavidParticipant@.Clint 218172 wrote:
I’ve got another vote for the Linksys WRT54G! It was a little difficult to set up, because I found you had to use the cables they gave you, in the order they gave you, because one was a tiny bit bigger than the other, and it kept getting stuck. Perhaps it was just a problem with the one I set up, but once it was set up it works great.
It worked fine with my PSP and with my laptop, and it would also work with the Wii. Really, almost any router will work, but your best bet is to go with something reliable and well known like the Linksys WRT54G.
Clint
The RJ45 Ethernet cables provided should fit in any port on the router…I’ve never heard of that happening to anyone else, but as long as it did work for you.
May 9, 2007 at 9:06 pm #153027RabidKittenParticipantI think it’s pretty overwhelmingly obvious what the concensus is here, but once again, I agree that Linksys WRT54G is a gem. Heck, we just got our Wii in at the house last week, and not even knowing that it could hook up to a wireless router, we went into internet and it immediately picked up not only our router…but our next door neighbor’s as well *hahahahahahah*
It didn’t work right away, but thanks to Nintendo’s fantastic help on their support site, it was only a matter of time.
We also ventured over to my mothers and found that it picked up on her router (same make and model) right away, and my brother says that it works perfectly with his PSP.
That and from what I’ve seen, even for someone completely clueless with router configs like myself, Linksys was very easy to mess around with. (finding channel and security and all that)
May 10, 2007 at 4:43 am #153032Jon8RFCMemberI don’t know which versions of that router offer MIMO technology, but my suggestion is to go with a MIMO-enhanced setup. Since so many people have gone wireless (for tons of electronics), cordless (for telephones), and use appliances that operate in the frequency range of a wireless-G router, MIMO is a welcome addition. The air waves are swamped with data, and that makes it more difficult for signals to reach great length at good quality.
Your wireless card doesn’t need to be MIMO-enhanced to take advantage of a MIMO router, I can assure you of that. So, don’t get conned into buying a brand new wireless card if someone at your local electronics store pushes you into that. That’s not to say that it isn’t useful though–my wireless card in my laptop uses MIMO, and I pick up MIMO & non-MIMO signals better than most non-MIMO cards do.
If you can grab one with MIMO, go for it! I swapped my brother-in-law’s wireless-G with this one and it allowed a connection to be made downstairs as well as across the house. The router I used is a bit old, and the newer D-Link wireless routers DO perform better, in my experience. Wireless-G’s successor, the wireless-N “work-in-progress” protocol, is based off of MIMO as well.
And, as an fyi, the Wii uses MIMO internally (though when I worked there, they instructed me not to acknowledge that…just to play dumb because they didn’t want the consumer to feel their hardware wasn’t adequate to begin with), so it’s a great match for a MIMO router! My thoughts are that they use MIMO to help grab signals better, so that people with older wireless routers have a better chance of connecting, which equates to fewer tech-support calls.
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