Setting up a wireless network

[jchalm]

I have a few questions about setting up a wireless network. I have two PC’s and one laptop I would have on the network.

#1 What type of router and adapters should I use a,b,g or n ?
#2 Which are better usb or pci type adapters ?

[h20-ski]

Ideally for the router I would go for just the G adapter, seeing as how the type n is not even been ratified yet. Being that I now work for a wireless tech support company, we suggest that people use PCI adapters.
1. because they tend to have better reception
2. you can buy special coaxial cable to run to another antenna should your card not have good enough reception

[BoWevil_abx]

I just set up a wireless network for a friend, and I used Office Depot's house brand router and PCI card, called Ativa. I have to say it was by far the easiest, most trouble-free and least expensive installation of any wireless networking equipment I have used. The Ativa wireless G router auto detects all settings (this was DSL) and complete installation took no more than 10 minutes, max. The wireless coverage area is very good too. The router advertises a coverage radius of 400 feet and it was every bit of that. It has NAT and SPI, and for $39.99, it is a great buy.

[rlelina]

I just bought the Ative USB Wireless G for my desktop machine. At first, I use the Ativa Wireless USB Utility to connect to my wireless router. It works great. However, I noticed that even though I wasn't doing anything (no typing, no net traffic going through), the Task Manager was showing 60% CPU load. When I looked at the processes, it was the Ativawcui process that was taking all the time. Then I switch to using Windows XP handle the connection to my wireless router. It still connects fine but the CPU load is down to 0-1% when I'm not doing anything.

Any idea why Ativa's utility is eating up CPU cycles or what it's doing? Thanks.

[jchalm]

Well I ended up going with the Linksys WRT54G router and the WMP54G pci adapter. I have one pc connected by wire to the router and the other wireless. I used the linksys setup cd to get things up and running. Now I need to know how to share files and a printer,do I need to setup a LAN ?

[Bofinn]

did you change the default password to something more secure?

did you enable WPK personal in the security?

[jchalm]

Originally Posted by Bofinn

did you change the default password to something more secure?

did you enable WPK personal in the security?

Yes to both but I have question about being able to access my other PC's files. I wanted to know if there is a way that I can access any file on my wireless PC or just the shared files?

[arook1427]

Setting up a wireless network is quite easy. If you have all the necessary hardware, it's pretty much plug and play. However, setting up your security is the most important and challenging part. WEP is preferred, while others that provide personal passwords are more frowned upon. Visit CXtec dot com for further information about network installation and Cable Express network cables.

[rjs735]

WEP is not the most secure. WPA or WPA2 is much better security. The password is needed only when you connect the first time or have several profiles and you use them quite often.

A password entry is a small price to pay for security.

www smallnetbuilder.com

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[rjs735]

Originally Posted by jchalm

Yes to both but I have question about being able to access my other PC's files. I wanted to know if there is a way that I can access any file on my wireless PC or just the shared files?

For security reasons the preferred way is to move files to be shared to the shared XP. There is no limitation as to what can be shared data wise. You can share your doucuments folder or even the C drive or all the drives on your system that have data. System or personal files makes no difference.