Equipment reccomendations for a semi-medium sized wireless network (10-12 computers)

[KiLLaZ]

I'm setting up the wireless network at my friends' house/apartment to share a cable connection and to play games on. It's going to be for 8 people w/ about 10-12 computers, all equipped with 802.11b except for two desktops that will be in the same room with the router plugging directly in with ethernet wire.

Now what kind of gear would you guys reccomend? We're currently using my Netgear MR814 because I'm subletting over the summer, but it's really not handling so many computers very well. It gets very bogged down and slow and would need restarting every once in a while. I'm thinking that the standard home wireless routers that you can just pick up at Best Buy just won't be able to handle this kind of thing. There are eight guys that are going to be splitting the bill so price isn't too big of an issue. They just want a reliable router that's fast and won't be needing a reset every week. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[skyking]

just curious, do you have V2 router? if not, have you updated firmware?

 

[KiLLaZ]

I have the first version of the MR814 and am running firmware version 4.11

 

[topdavis]

I've had success with SMC's Barricade with the latest firmware release. My 2.4 Ghz wireless phone used to drop the wireless connections, but with the latest firmware, that doesn't happen anymore. I've only had up to six people on my access point so I don't know how well the SMC's would handle more than 6. Everyone used the Orinoco Gold cards in the laptops running XP.

You probably want to look into the newer devices offering 802.11g instead of the 802.11b. And whichever one you chose, if you care about security, I would check to see if they offer WPA protection instead of just WEP, or if the device is flashable for WPA. If you are running Windows XP, you need a WPA security patch. When it comes to the Access points, speed variations are minimal. The variations here are found mostly in firmware stability and overall range.

Linksys offers a dual band Wireless access point, model WRT55AG, $300 retail. It offers 802.11b speeds as well as 802.11g speeds. So multiple wireless types can all access the same wireless network.

If you are doing serious gaming with laptops and are concerned about power consumption, you may want to look at SMC's new high powered 802.11b card. It increases operating range by 2700 feet because it can create up to 200 milliwatts of transmit power. Most cards are in the 40-75 milliwatt range. Plus the card offers an additional antennae that will extend the range and does not have any additional power consumption than other cards. It lists for about $140, but I am sure you can find it cheaper. In keeping with the SMC line, the offer a 802.11g access point model smc2804wbr. I have seen it as cheap as $109.

Hope this helps...

 

[SaigonK]

Buy a Cisco Aironet 1100 series b radio..comes with a 5dbi anntenae already built into it for extended range.
Very nice unit for well under $500.