Getting internet in my room.

[Sanius]

Hello. For the past 10-12 years i've had the PC in the living room, and I want to get it set up in my room, but my dad doesn't want to do it until we go wireless. But that'll take awhile since we don't have the money at the moment My dad wants to get an internet switch, but i'm not sure what that is. It does connect all the computers (but he tells me our network will be 10x faster, since we have only an 11mbps network so it makes my internet slow).

So I'll tell you how my house works

We have 3 stories, 1st is the den and living room, second is the hallway and, and the third is the loft and attic.

My room is located in the hallway, it's right down the stairs from the loft, The router is at the opposite side of the loft. Currently the cable for my pc runs down from the loft, and my dad threw the cable over and put it over the kitchen door (so it wouldn't get on the floor) and hooked it to my PC.

But I want to know how to get internet in my room so I can move the computer, I don't know how to do this.

In my mind, this would require unhooking the PC and monitor, moving it up to my room (the easy part), and then we would have to have the internet cable run down the stairs into my room, only problem with this is, the cable would be on the carpet, and I would have to have my door open all the time (unless the cable is small enough, say 3-4 inches in diamater), then run it across my wall, around my bed, then behind my desk to the PC.

Now see, this is all really easy. It's just a matter of not getting a cable on the hallway floor (I don't want people tripping on it or anything, and it'll look messy), and getting it in my room.

Can someone tell me what to do?

 

[Devistater]

OMG a cable 4 inches in diameter? That is freaking HUGE. Not even the 100 or 200 amp supply cable that comes into your house from the power line is that big. Seriously dude, you know what size a CD/DVD is? Its about 5" in diameter. Your 4" is barely smaller than that.

Network cables (which you use to have computers connected to internet, etc) are not even 1/2" in diameter. A quick check with my tape measure shows they under 1/4"

Now on to explaining stuff and correcting some things from your post 🙂

A network switch is similar in idea to a USB hub, it takes one network connection and spits it into 4 or 5 or 8 or whatever. You can often find a 5 port switch on sale for around $20 or so locally.

Wireless is fairly cheap to setup. You can get a wireless router (which generally includes 4 port switch on the back, so no need to get an extra switch if you go this route) for around $10 or $20 on sale at local stores if you wait for a sale. You can get wireless cards (you'll need one in every computer you want to do wireless with) for not a whole lot more when they are on sale. A quick check online for the weekly ads shows compusa has dlink brand stuff on sale and is $20 for a wireless 802.11g (the faster speed wireless) router and same for the USB network things for the computers. And I didn't even check officemax, officedepot, staples, circuit city, etc.

Do you have 10mbit speed networking equipment right now? Or 100mbit speed stuff? Cause the 10mbit stuff is really really old, like 10+ years old. Early 1990's old.

As for slowing your internet down, no, not even if you have the old 10mbit stuff. I find it very tough to believe that you have internet connection more than 10mbit. I consider myself lucky to have 6mbit DSL from SBC. Typical DSL speeds are 1.5mbit, 3mbit. Cable is usually 3mbit. Etc. Plus 99% of all DSL modems (I think maybe cable modems too) have 10mbit hardware inside since its rare to have dsl or cable that is faster.

However, if you do have 10mbit network, you could theoretically speed up your entire internal within the house network by 10 times if you buy 100mbit wired equipment. BUT this extra speed is NOT used for internet. Its only used if you are transfering files across the network. And it would only be noticible if you are transferring big files hundreds of megabytes or gigabytes across from one computer to another computer (not to or from internet). Like if you like to copy mp3s from one computer to another, that would affect it.

If you do that much filetransferring to and from other computers in your house you may want to reconsider wireless. Typical wireless 802.11g speeds (g is the faster wireless, b is the slower one) are about one third of a 100mbit network. But if you are used to a old 10mbit network anyway, a 802.11g wireless will be three times faster than what you used to have.

Wireless is fairly easy to setup in most cases, just get the wireless router working first (leave a computer plugged in through a wire until you get the internet working, etc) and then plug in the USB wireless device into the computer you want wireless and follow the instructions for doing a driver for it. Then you are ready to go often if you are using windows XP, it sets up most settings automatically if you let it.

If you want to go wired route, then avoid getting 100' or 300' cables from compusa. You will be charged a huge amount. Like $100 for a 100' cable. Get the cables from ebay, or make your own. Personally I bought a 1000' roll of network cat5e for around $45 and that included the crimper, a connectivity tester, and 100 plug ends so I could do all my own. I have a cable running on the floor into my room (and the door closes fine, even with carpet) , but eventually I want to run it through the the attic and walls to get rid of the cable on the floor.


So anyway, now that you know some of the realities of the situation, make the decision on whether to go wireless or wired. And go for it.

Feel free to post other questions here and I'll try to help, or other people here will help too I'm sure.

 

[Sanius]

alright, I discussed it with my dad and he tells me all we need is two wireless adapters, one for my PC, and for the router. It sounds logical since we already have a router 😛

and since I found PCI adapters that run for $20 with $25 mail-in rebate, i'll try and get two of those for $40.

 

[JackMDS]

If you want to keep your current Wired Router you need one Access Point and one adaptor, Access Points are costly.

You can get a New Wireless Cable/DSL Router and a PCI card for less than $40.

Example: 802.11g Wireless-G PCI Adapter $4.99 after rebate.

DI-524 AirPlus G High Speed 2.4GHz Wireless Router, 802.11b, g $19.99 after rebate.

I.e $24.96 after reable for both.

:sun:

 

[TGS]

Of course other than having the lack of conspicous cable routing, using the router jack mentioned will not give you WPA.

Find something with WPA and then go full throttle with replacing your existing setup.

 

[ShadowBlade]

There is such a thing as phone line networking which forces your network into the phone line, therefore making all phone jacks in your house part of the network.

If your really truely against wireless (the much better option) then this is there too.
Sorry, dont have any links, too lazy too look them up.

 

[Brazen]

Or you can use powerline networking. You would need two of these.