Help!

There are a number of things you can do, the USB wireless adapters work OK but I've had a lot of problems with these devices due to weak signal. Option 1: You have better luck purchasing a PCI wireless card. You will need a wireless AP to provide the connectivity to the computer downstairs. Opiton 2: You can setup a peer-to-peer network but you will have to have 2 wireless cards and just do internet connection sharing through the ethernet of the device connected to your cable modem.

Option 1 is your better choice for stability.

Sean Hartling Skybeam High Speed Wireless Internet

"Sean" wrote in news:j0xtd.647$ snipped-for-privacy@news.flashnewsgroups.com:

In addition to this excellent advice, I'll tell you that it certainly is possible not to have a desktop PC connected to your router via a hardwire. You do, however, need a hardwire connection to configure your router / access point initially.

Also, I would caution that if anything should go wrong with the router or access point, and you are unable to connect to it, you will need to connect via an ethernet cable to reconfigure and troubleshoot. This is not as dire as it might seem, as the workaround is quite simple: you can go to most computer stores and get a very long Cat 5 cable. Provided that you don't mind breaking this cable out of the closet, and your computer is within reasonable distance of the router (about 100 meters), when things go wrong, you should be ok. That's most likely the route that I would take.

Finally, you can very often find a wireless router for about the same price as a standalone access point. It might behoove you to have less hardware and get the consolidated model. Linksys, Belkin, DLink, and Netgear all make excellent wireless routers that I have configured and used.

The Chairman

Thankyou so much for your replies and advice, I'm starting to understand whats needed.

I think the new computer has a PCI 802.11g ? card installed already but i'm not 100% sure about this, so does that mean all i need is a wireless router that i connect to the Surfboard Cable modem i have upstairs and these two devices connect via a ethernet cable which is currently plugged into the back of this (my old) computer?

I'm sorry if i sound thick but you mentioned about fixed AP and 'all in one' wireless routers, whats the difference and what is a fixed AP? I don't remember reading about these, however i have read about wireless routers and do agree that i'll probably opt for buying netgear or D-Link or something similar.

"Matt Jenkins (Personal)" wrote in news:nfNtd.119472$ snipped-for-privacy@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

Yes, that's all you need.

I don't recall anything about a "fixed" AP, but I did mention a standalone AP. Very basically, the difference is that a router has the ability to assign IP addresses, allowing multiple computers to connect to one another and a shared internet connection. An access point is not as "smart" as a router, and only provides wireless access. It doesn't assign individual addresses to multiple computers, and most often is used in combination with a router.