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Rookie wants to add wireless to existing wired home network

F

Felecha

Golden Member
With considerable effort I learned what I needed to know and do to make a home network several years ago. I only learned enough to do it, not to really understand what I was doing. Hardware, terminology, etc are still fuzzy. But I got help from a friend and from this forum.

My wife recently got a laptop at work and enjoys the wireless access there. She wants it at home, too, so I gotta start learning again.

I have a LinkSys 4-port router in the cellar, connected to the cable modem. I ran cat5 cables to the 4 computers in the house, so each location has a cable coming out of the wallboard, and plugged into each computer.

From what I have gathered so far, talking with friends again, I can get a wireless device and plug the cable end into it and that will do it, unless one is not enough to reach all the far corners of the house.

But I see "wireless access point", "wireless router", "switch", "bridge", etc, and I'm not clear what I need to get.

And when I know WHAT to get, which brand would be the one to go for.

Is that enough to start with? I really appreciate the help I get her.

F

I want to make sure, too, that I can keep the existing connections for the other computers without having to make them wireless, tto
 
Well for the simplest transition you would want to buy a Wireless Access Point. Then simply plug this into your other router and disable DHCP on the WAP. Then you would have to configure the security settings but that isn't hard.

As for good brands I like Linksys, Netgear and D-Link. And you can still keep three other clients on wired connections since the WAP will be using one wired port.
 
"Then simply plug this into your other router ....."

Does this mean I can plug the RJ45 at the end of the cable in my wife's office here at home (not perfectly centrally located, but maybe close enough) into the WAP? That would be pretty simple
 
I don't know what you mean by "cable in my wife's office". All you do is run a Cat5 cable between your main router and WAP. Where ever they might be.
 
Sorry, yes that's what I meant. I have a Cat5 that runs from the LinkSys router to her office. She currently plugs the cable into her laptop port. I now understand that I can plug that cable into the WAP and she can access THAT from wherever she's in range. And I've seen elsewhere that I have to disable the DHCP in the WAP since the router does that job.

Thanks
 
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