Wireless Network Hardware Configuration

[Pixle]

Hi, I'm looking into getting a Wireless Home Network going. All of the pc's have windows XP. Their is 1 laptop , and 2 pc's. In total I think it would be best to get one PCMCIA card for wireless laptop - and one PCI Wireless card for a pc. The third pc could be connected directly to the router.

I'm certain that 802.11g will fit my networking best, yet i'm uncertain on which hardware components perform well - and which don't. I have a brother in law who just networked his laptop and he had very difficult times getting connected even at home - a few feet away.

Performance, reliability, and cost are what i'm looking for. Are their any bundles out their that work best? Can 802.11b Pci cards get the same coverage and signal strength as 802.11g?

Could you please recommend a few kits/configs and explain in part what I don't really understand.

So far i've looked into the popular LinkSys Router that sold a while ago for an extremely good price (I missed out 🙂 ).

Thanks,

Pixle.

 

[stevty2889]

I am using a linksys router with mine. An 802.11B card should work with 802.11g, however it won't have as much bandwidth. 802.11b has a longer range, but it's 11Mb/s while 802.11g has a shorter range, but a higher bandwith(52mb/s I believe).

 

[SearchMaster]

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but most of the early 802.11g routers would drop to 802.11b speeds if a single "b" client was connected.

Also, unless you just don't want the extra clutter, you might consider a USB adaptor instead of PCI, as it will give you more flexibility of placement to ensure the best connection. If you're mostly interested in surfing the web, printer sharing, etc., you'll probably never notice the difference between 802.11b and 802.11g, but "g" has gotten cheap enough that it would be a better longterm solution.

Sorry I don't have any specific recommendations, as I am happily chugging along with my 802.11b configuration (one router on each side of the house). I've used three different brands of routers - all have worked well for me.

 

[CJP]

I've had a good experience with my now old Linksys 802.11b Router. I connect to it with my Laptop (Orinoco PC card) and Ipaq PDA. Like another poster said, on some 802.11g routers if you connect 1 802.11b device the whole network slows to 802.11b speeds so you probably want all 802.11g cards/router. Also, I read last month in a pc magazine that 802.11g products that advertise that they run faster than stock 802.11g are hard to actually get running at the faster speeds. So I'd personally just get vanilla 802.11g products unless you're confident you can tweak them properly.