Help me Network my house!!

Psch91 · Jun 17th, 2004, 03:45 PM

Hey guys, I will be moving soon and wanted to network my whole house together. First I was thinking that I will run cable through the walls and then put wall jacks in each room, where the comps can connect to and be networked. Then I would have to buy tools, whole lot of cable, wall jacks and connectors, and whatever else I need. I would need like 4-5 wall jacks, in with which some need to be assembled and arent that cheap. Then I was thinking, it would be a lot easier, a lot easier, without running wires through the whole house, and go with wireless. I would get for myself, the router, which I saw for 80 bucks on buy.com, along with 60 bucks for a NIC, and 60 bucks for a notebook adapter. I would be 200$ into it, and I would be set, because my room mates will buy their own NIC and whatever. I was thinking of getting 802.11g which is at 54mps, but not as fast as wired. Would it be cheaper to go with wired and run it through the house, or should I just go wireless and save myself a lot of trouble? Thanks

Anything else I should know/worry about?

Radioaktiv · Jun 17th, 2004, 03:47 PM

wireless router
fo sho

unless you plan on running like more than 5 comps

Psch91 · Jun 17th, 2004, 03:51 PM

I would be running 1 computer, and 1 laptop, and then both of my room mates would have one computer each. So I would be up to 4, but I do want the possibilty of adding more if need be.

LethalAudio · Jun 17th, 2004, 03:51 PM

Wireless is a major pain in the ass, even with good equipment.

Radioaktiv · Jun 17th, 2004, 03:54 PM

you probably want to go wired then

are you going to have more than one internet connection?
or just run all thru the same?

or are you even doing this for online gaming or anything?
or just network gaming/file sharing?

Rain-Xx · Jun 17th, 2004, 03:55 PM

Our house didn't cost too much to run wires, we did it all ourself.

Our house:

Modem -->
4 Port Router --> Comp x 3
+ Hub --> Comp x 2 + Laptop

All is Cat 5 cable... got about 300ft worth of cable, too. Modem's downstairs, only one computer is downstairs, two cables go under the house and up through the furnace room/laundry room than into my bedroom and then into my office. Another cable goes the other way, under the house and then up a wall and outside the house and into my sister's room.

One day of work, but you'd probably get a better connection, more stable... less outside interference.

Although I'm not too up to date on wireless. The only wireless device we have is my laptop, and I only use its wireless at University.

Psch91 · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:00 PM

Radioaktiv, I would only have one DSL connection. And I am doing it so that we can share files, possibly printers, and also for gaming on the LAN and online, so I could possibly have people over, where then I would need to have more than 4 comps connected.

LethalAudio · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:02 PM

I have DSL too. Its run directly to the router and then its sent to all the computers in the house. The router also lets us share files and game and such. Its a pain in the ass to setup but once it gets going, its ok for a while. One good thing is that if the phone lines get struck by lightning, no danger to the computers.

Psch91 · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:06 PM

I currently have a router in my house, and I have 3 computers hooked up, and sometimes a laptop. But 2 computers and the laptop are in my room, and I only needed to run one cable through a wall into the room next door. I am just concerned about running cable throughout the entire house. Cause my room is on one side, and 2 other rooms are on the other side. I would need a lot of cable which would run me how much? Like $100 bucks? I am just thinking how much work properly wiring the network would cost me, and the time needed to do it, compared to just spending 200 bucks on wireless and have it hooked up in several minutes.

lshadoff · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:14 PM

I set up a wireless network in our home. I purchased D-Link equipment at Office Max (wireless router, PCI card for the PC, and PCMCIA laptop card). The router is in an upstairs bedroom with the cable modem attached, and nothing else. Each PC has a wireless network card, so it can attach to the Internet via the router. I'm composing this on the laptop downstairs in the living room.

Using Windows XP and the software/instructions that came with the D-Link equipment it was simple to set up. I set up 128 bit encryption to protect the network using the D-Link router configuration utility. It slows things down a bit, but both computers always connect at 11Mbps.

I carried the laptop around, and checked the signal strength throughout the house. I never lost the connection although it was low in some areas. I took it outside, and could stand across the street and still stay connected (hence the encryption).

Lew

LethalAudio · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:16 PM

Yea, thats what I was talking about a pain in the ass. The D-Link program takes up a nice chunk of cpu time. But the connection is solid though.

Radioaktiv · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:22 PM

If you're only filesharing and doing LAN gaming, then wireless shouldnt give you any problems.
Its when you might want to have 4 or 5 comps on the internet playing games, or what have you, that you might run into lagging or the like

Psch91 · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:25 PM

Well, I leave my computer on 24/7 downloading stuff, and one of my room mates downloads a lot too, and we would all be on the internet a lot of the time.

lshadoff · Jun 17th, 2004, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psch91

Well, I leave my computer on 24/7 downloading stuff, and one of my room mates downloads a lot too, and we would all be on the internet a lot of the time.

The best you're going to receive with a cable modem is 3Mbps/s (the most I've actually seen is 230kbps downloading files). Since the network will carry 11Mbps, I don't think four computers will use up the available bandwith downloading.

Lew

Bugalou · Jun 17th, 2004, 05:17 PM

Screw cable modems, they use shared bandwidth..If someone gets on down the block then your connection slows and so on and so on...If your in Verizons territory, their offering a free wireless router with DSL sign up..

Bug