Bridging wireless and with wired network

[superfastkyle]

I have been trying to make my HTPC connect to my router and the rest of my network by connecting it to the wired ethernet on my laptop and my laptop gets on the network with the wireless card. HTPC has xp pro laptop has xp home. I did get it to work once by having miniport bridge installed on the laptop but when I restarted the laptop I couldnt get it to work again. Both machines would pop up an error that there is an ip conflict but I don't know how there could be one unless they are somehow seeing the HTPC twice?

Heres how my network is set up

Cable modem > Router 1 (x.x.x.101) dhcp on< PC 1
< PC 2
< Wireless router (x.x.x.102) dhcp off < Laptop on wireless < laptop wired < another router dhcp off (x.x.x.103) < htpc


I couldn't find my crossover cable so I'm using three different routers, but I dont think thats the problem... could be wrong though. I shouldnt have to turn on ICS or anything right? I'm not really looking for anything real efficient (htpc just needs to connect to freedb and stuff every once in awhile) here just don't want to buy another wireless card or run more cables. I do have a 11mbps wireless card for the htpc but I figure that would just make things more difficult and I want some speed to transfer files and stream videos between the laptop and htpc.

thanks for the help

 

[superfastkyle]

with the 11mbps card in the htpc I can get 500KB download which I could probably live with... but only 100KB upload through lan, why such a difference?

 

[Tsaico]

I think you are making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be. then all your devices can just connect to it via the same DHCP server. You don't need to bridge anything. I would just toss the wired router, replace it with the wireless one, and just get rid of the last router entirely, run the wires to the devices directly instead of the pseudo-switches. Instead of spanning from the different routers and using them like switches, just get rid of them. You only need the one wireless router. (unless it is NOT a router, but a access point.)

In any case, I do agree the upload difference is unusual. I haven't seen that large of a difference before... what are you using to test speed?

Just to make sure that I understand what you want to do, is you have a HTPC that you do not want to run a cat5e cable to, but the wireless network you currently have performs less then you would like. You currently tried to use an internet sharing connection from your laptop to the HTPC but that isn't working since the first time you got it to work. (which you will need to turn on ICS, otherwise, your HTPC will not get a default gateway and IP and won't be able to connect to anything.)

Oh, and who is actually serving the files? A third computer, the internet, the laptop, or the HTPC?

 

[superfastkyle]

well I have had the two routers (wireless just as a ap/switch) running for a while now mostly because the wired one is in the closet where all the wires are run and my wireless doesnt get good reception there, so yeah its slightly complicated. I guess the best option would probably be to get an ext antenna and run it as the router but obviously I'd rather not spend money I dont have to. and only my laptop has a 802.11g built in, thats why I was trying to get the htpc to connect to the internet through it, without running wires, except between the two. Mostly I want to be able to stream my video files to my laptop from my htpc. and copy files to it from the laptop with some speed. I just have the 802.11b card in it now and am only get maybe half the bandwidth to stream my divx videos. I find those wizards extremely confusing/annoying is there an easier way to manually configure stuff. I assume I would want to pick that the laptop directly connects to the internet yes? even though it in fact doesnt, I dont even know when/if ICS is turned on. It doesnt really tell you what it turns on or changes or anything

 

[Tsaico]

A good introduction ot setting up ICS

But this won't solve your problem, since you will be tied to the HTPC via your crossover cable and your upload from the HTPC wireless blows.

Have you actaully tried to view the video and it sucks (or is displayed in the media player)or are you using some sort of testing software to measure the bandwidth up and down?

I would say your best bet is to barrow a reel of fishing tape, and pull the carpet up a bit and then run a patch cable to your HTPC.

 

[superfastkyle]

I was using du meter to monitor my bandwidth during file transfers, I did find the checkbox to enable ics but it said something about a conflict. Can it not be used when the router and computers are on 192.168.0.x? I'm sure every thing has a different ip I even tried moving the router to 192.168.0.5 instead of the default 192.168.0.1 I'm guessing ics and a router can't be on the same subnet? I'm confused I guess I will probably just have to run cables even though I really don't want to. It seems to me that I should just need to bridge connections if I can get to keep working. Because I pretty much just want to use the laptop as a wireless bridge.