Wireless Laptop System Help

[Broccers]

Okay I'm not clued up at all on CPUs these days even though my Uni qualification is Compuer Studies.

I'm moving to a new pad in the next few weeks and need wireless broadband and a new laptop.

The budget for the 'puter is £1500 and I need advice on whats best for my coin. Also what do I need to connect in all the rooms of my house and how?

Probably very simple but I need an idiots guide to getting this set up.

Thanks in advance.

[marlboro]

I've just bought an Acer Aspire 1502LMi. It's quick, very quick and comes with a good spec. About £1150. (built-in WiFi 802.11g)

I went for Acer as my last one, TravelMate 723, has taken 5 years of abuse and lasted very well. Only replacement part required was a battery that failed after 3 years and that is to be expected.

Not used the WiFi connection yet as I use a 100Mb/s wired connection and my WiFi (LinkSys) is old... only 802.11b (11Mb/s).

[stuh]

I also have a new Acer Centrino based laptop and it's superb. 1.6Ghz Centrino (equiv to about 2.4Ghz P4), 512MB Ram, 60Gg Hard disk, 15" screen (1400x1050, 64Mb Radeon graphics. It's powerful enough to run Photoshop and play modern 3d games

Then add a wirless broadband router/ DSL modem:

Something like:

http://web6.scan.co.uk/Products/Info.asp?WPID=91316

Only other advice would be that depending on how big your house is, thickness of walls etc, tou may need a high gain antenna for your wireless card. You can get these for about £30................

[ribol]

Can someone please help shed some light on this wireless thing for me.
Getting Broadband soon and have one home PC which will be on it. I will be replacing my old laptop with a new one and have been advised to get one with built-in WiFi 802.11g – so far so good.

This is what I would like to achieve - I would like to be able to use the laptop on the net without having to crank up the main PC. I would like to use both on the net at the same time. I would like to share files etc whenever both are on and “linked.”

If I get one of the wireless routers as suggested above how would it connect to the main PC – wire or a wireless, I have no networking card at all so what would I need for it? Both the PC and the laptop will have XP home, I keep hearing that XP Professional is better for networking, would this be a problem? Last thing, is it ok to turn off the router power when not in use or does it have to be on all the time?

Many thanks for any input and sorry for the thread hi-jack

Ivan

PS what does Wi-Fi stand for?

[stuh]

Sounds like you need a dsl modem outer. This will allow your laptop to connect direct to the net without firing up your pc. The actual harware provides the NAT and firewall functions together with DHCP to give your laptop an IP address. You can turn the router off whenever you like and it will reconnect fine at a later date.

You can then choose to connect your desktop pc via an ethernet port on on the routerswitch or wirelessly as per the laptop!

Wireless Fidelity..............oddly

Probably all as clear as mud

[ribol]

stuh said:

Sounds like you need a dsl modem outer. This will allow your laptop to connect direct to the net without firing up your pc. The actual harware provides the NAT and firewall functions together with DHCP to give your laptop an IP address. You can turn the router off whenever you like and it will reconnect fine at a later date. You can then choose to connect your desktop pc via an ethernet port on on the routerswitch or wirelessly as per the laptop! Wireless Fidelity..............oddly Probably all as clear as mud

Resident PC plank here but what are the following in English:

"Dsl modem outer" - is that different to what was suggested above?

"NAT"

"DHCP"

"Routerswitch"

Must confess I cannot see the Wireless Fidelity bit at all, I thought the "F" word had died years ago. Also, does the modem have to be permanently powered up, or only when in use?

Ivan

[sybaseian]

ribol said:

Resident PC plank here but what are the following in English: "Dsl modem outer" - is that different to what was suggested above? "NAT" "DHCP" "Routerswitch" Must confess I cannot see the Wireless Fidelity bit at all, I thought the "F" word had died years ago. Also, does the modem have to be permanently powered up, or only when in use? Ivan

1. Is a combined ADSL Modem/Router
2. Used behind a Router on your private network - you only need to have one IP address, which is used by the Router for the outside world. All your PC's will have a NAT IP address, which is internal so they can see each other on your network - ie: 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.255
3. Used by you Router to resolve external IP addresses, so that you can get to pistonheads.com, etc

[agent006]

Plug a wireless router into your adsl line
Get a wireless enabled laptop
Get a wireless card for your main PC

switch it all on

sorted.

[nighthawk]

No need to bother with a wireless card for the main PC really, far cheaper and faster to get a normal NIC in it.

I only have good things to say about the NETGEAR 834G adsl wireless router.

My trusty DELL inspiron lappy doesn't have on board wifi, so I make use of a NETGEAR WG511 card.

Connection reliability between the card and the router is great, with 54mps almost everywhere in the house.

[sybaseian]

agent006 said:

Plug a wireless router into your adsl line Get a wireless enabled laptop Get a wireless card for your main PC switch it all on sorted.

It's a better idea to have an ethernet connection to the router rather than wireless - if you make any changes via wireless and you cock-up it's harder to sort it out if you can't connect wirelessly!

[nighthawk]

sybaseian said:

It's a better idea to have an ethernet connection to the router rather than wireless - if you make any changes via wireless and you cock-up it's harder to sort it out if you can't connect wirelessly!

Thats a good point actually!

Netgear recommend that you don't perform any upgrades to firmware or make serious changes to configuration via the wireless connection.

[agent006]

sybaseian said:

agent006 said: Plug a wireless router into your adsl line Get a wireless enabled laptop Get a wireless card for your main PC switch it all on sorted. It's a better idea to have an ethernet connection to the router rather than wireless - if you make any changes via wireless and you cock-up it's harder to sort it out if you can't connect wirelessly!

Good point. Wired cards are cheaper too.

[Broccers]

Cheers fellas.

What I really need now are some links to purchase the right bits of kit. As I said in my initial post I'm totally clueless.

>> Edited by Broccers on Friday 26th March 13:00