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General discussion

New 2 wireless, keeping speed and performance...

Sep 7, 2004 4:51AM PDT

Ok I'm new to wireless networking and I am going to be setting up a wireless network in my home, please read on and help my noob-ness.

I know I need a router and thinking of going all linksys here.... and each computer (3-5 in all) will need a PCI card thingy to get the wireless signal.... ok ok, I got that..but

I like to play games, and do other things...how do I keep my network performace up (speed) while keeping it secure?!?

I was thinking of using range expanders to boost signal and keep my speeds up, but I heard range expanders just slow speeds down...=(

What should I do!?! Thanks guys and gals.

Discussion is locked

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Re: New 2 wireless, keeping speed and performance...
Sep 8, 2004 11:14AM PDT

For online gaming, my kids have found a hard wired connection works best. Too much latency in wireless for them.

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Re: New 2 wireless, keeping speed and performance...
Sep 9, 2004 8:59AM PDT

Thats what I was worried about is the ping times being really high...I'm on my wired network right now, but this other house that I have is 2 story and a wired network while possible seems like much more work to setup and hiding the wires. Here I just got lazy and one wired goes across the hallway..

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Re: New 2 wireless, keeping speed and performance...
Sep 9, 2004 6:01PM PDT

I went thru this about six months ago. First I tried a D-Link system, then a Linksys, and finally replaced my modem that was not working well with a Motorola modem that is both a combo cable modem and wireless system. It works great. I spent hours on the phone with D-Link, LinkSys, Motorola, and Dell only to find out from each of them the 28 key encryption system was not going to work with my Dell laptop. One of the guys that I spoke with told me that the encryption only works about 15-20% of the time.

Good Luck

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RE: New 2 wireless
Feb 23, 2005 5:09PM PST

i have set up a wireless network in my home and i have a supper g or a 802.11g and it's a d-link that's better then linksys the speed is 2.4Gig my rate is 54 or above i don't need a range expander to keep the speed up

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Some factors to consider
Feb 24, 2005 6:19AM PST

Here are some other factors to consider.
Are you wanting all the PCs to game to the internet or a nice LAN party? I have friends who game on wireless and don't have any problems. When we have a LAN party they sometime download the maps faster, because their machine is faster. You have to factor in walls and other electronic devices that in the line of site of the router. A 2.4Ghz cordless phone can cause problems on your wireless network.

If you are gaming on the internet and sharing one broadband connections then a wireless adapter only getting 11Mbps(802.11b) is still going to be faster than your broadband connect at 1.544Mbps. That is what will slow you down.

I personally have the D-link Xtreme-G DI-624 rev C (single antenna). You are caple of 108Mps if you have a Xtreme-G wireless adapter. I am very happy with my router but Linksys are also great. I just installed a Linksys system at my friends house and she gets 54Mbps from the first floor to second floor office.