making my tower wi-fi ready

n88tr

So I'm out of college and no hardline and 10 mb/persec download speed [Those were the good days!] and I'm at home with wifi. It's not spotty, but not really strong. I dunno if I'll be able to do online gaming like what i want with battlefield 3, but I'm hoping.


Anyways my issue is that i have no idea how to get my tower ready for wi-fi. Do you still need a seperate wi-fi card inserted into the motherboard?


My board: http://www.newegag.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157241


Or can I just buy a dvd installer and usb wi-fi stick and do an installation and it will auto detect?

Thanks a boat load

Kwramm

both should work. if the PCI Express 1x slot is free (the small white thingy on the motherboard) then just put a card in there. Cards usually have more/bigger antennas than USB sticks so I'd wager they have better reception as well. If it's not free then get a USB stick.

mystichobo

Kwramm wrote: »

both should work. if the PCI Express 1x slot is free (the small white thingy on the motherboard) then just put a card in there. Cards usually have more/bigger antennas than USB sticks so I'd wager they have better reception as well. If it's not free then get a USB stick.

Yeah this.
Some usb sticks have detachable/external antennas too, and so will have the exact same sort of reach and your standard card.

ivanzu

Get USB WiFi adapter,I have one works fine and speed is the same and connection rarely breaks.

Justin Meisse

If you have an extra wifi router sitting around you could load DD-WRT on it and set it up as a client bridge, here's a tutorial.

That's what I use, my whole office is plugged into one router that connects via wifi to the ATT U-verse modem in the living room. It might even be worth it to look into buying a router and turning it into a bridge, I'm running it on a Linksys WRT54G v.1 and it's a rock solid champ. The latest WRT54Gs have had their memory gimped so you might want to look into a better router like the E1200.

and while I'm going on about wireless bridges: I used to have my PS3, TV, Wii, & Xbox360 all hooked up to the bridge, that eliminated the need to buy the expensive MS wireless dongle and negated my PS3's flaky wifi connection.

Kwramm

I wish I could fix my wireless bridge... now I have no TV as my sat receiver needs an internet connection. I have no idea how I set it up and the routers weren't really ideal to begin with But the powerline adapters they have on sale here ain't cheap either.

n88tr

so a pci-e one or usb is fine? I mean they're equal in all aspects?

m4dcow

+1 for Justin's suggestion of a bridge, you don't need DDWRT though, you could buy a bridge like this one
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Wireless-4-Port-Bridge-TEW-640MB/dp/B004FMI3DA"]Amazon.com : TRENDnet 300 Mbps Wireless N 4-Port Media Bridge TEW-640MB (Piano Black) : Electronics[/ame]
Doing it this was allows you to attach other devices later on and not be dependent on shitty drivers or in my experience whatever else goes wrong with directly attached wifi stuff on desktops.

Kwramm

I'd say setting up a wifi card is easier. Shitty drivers? Most Wifi chips are pretty standardized nowadays. Most PCIe cards will have one of the standard chips like a broadcomm or atheros chip in them. USB may be a different thing as the driver also needs to implement the USB handling part. I wouldn't be surprised if you could just plug in a PCIe wifi card and Windows will recognize it right away as there's almost no difference to whatever most notebooks have built in via their internal PCIe bus.

Justin Meisse

Kwramm wrote: »

I wish I could fix my wireless bridge... now I have no TV as my sat receiver needs an internet connection. I have no idea how I set it up and the routers weren't really ideal to begin with But the powerline adapters they have on sale here ain't cheap either.

what's the prob? My biggest issue was that I forgot the IP address of my bridge and IPCONFIG wouldn't display it when I was hooked up to it. I eventually figured out it was 192.168.1.6, typed that into my browser and was able to set everything up from there.

n88tr

so with a wi-fi card in my motherboard how would i update drivers? I mean would i look for a motherboard Ethernet driver set or just some drivers for the installed device itself?

m4dcow

With a Wi-Fi card in your pc , it will show up as some sort of Network adapter and have it's own drivers.

n88tr

Well I got my wifi card and apparently the slot i thought it would fit in is way the heck too small. I think my mobo only has one pci-e slot and I'm using it for my graphics card

Not sure what to do now??

my motherboard if you're curious to see it's layout
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157241

Justin Meisse

Return your wifi card and go with either a USB WiFi adapter or a wireless bridge

m4dcow

I see a pci-e 1x slot (the little white one), that is typically what wifi cards will use. What wifi card did you get?

I still say you should have gone with a bridge.

schneller

I had one of these http://www.netgear.com/service-provider/products/wireless-adapters/wireless-n/WNA3100.aspx and absolutely hated it. It would stop working multiple times a day and I got so fed up I just bought a super long ethernet cable to use my wired connection again.

n88tr

this is what i got
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704079

I wish it could connect to router but it's in the basement [I didn't set it up] and my room is on 2nd floor so i don't think cord would be long enough nor do i want to that and inconvenience my housemates

I'll go to the local electronics store and look for a usb wireless adaapter

m4dcow

Don't do usb, save yourself the headache.

You just got the wrong type of card something like this would be fine
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320074

When you go to the local electronics store, ask them if they have anything like that, make sure it is PCI-e 1x.

Justin Meisse

n88tr wrote: »

I wish it could connect to router but it's in the basement [I didn't set it up] and my room is on 2nd floor so i don't think cord would be long enough nor do i want to that and inconvenience my housemates

When we're talking about a bridge or using custom router firmware, it's a second device. So you would connect to the bridge (or modified router) with an Ethernet cable and the bridge would wirelessly connect to your router in the basement.

It's fairly simple to set up, I'm not super technical but I do have a lot of IT experience so I might be a bit biased :P

n88tr

Madcow:
Thanks, I think I'll go with that.

Justin:
So a bridge is something I'd connect to with a hardwire cable and then the bridge would seek out my wifi? Am I
understanding that correctly?

Justin Meisse

n88tr wrote: »

Madcow:
Thanks, I think I'll go with that.

Justin:
So a bridge is something I'd connect to with a hardwire cable and then the bridge would seek out my wifi? Am I
understanding that correctly?

correct, typically all you have to do is put the network name & password into the bridge via it's web interface.

The custom firmware I mentioned earlier will unlock a router giving it the ability to work as a bridge, that's if you have an extra router or two laying around like I do. The risk of flashing custom firmware is if you goof it up you'll brick the device and it voids your warranty either way.

Count Vertsalot

Now I'm going to really confuse you. You should get a 802.11ac compliant wifi card. This will future proof you for a long while. 802.11ac is the newest wireless standard. You will need a 802.11ac capable router to get full speeds, but you can hold off on that for now. 802.11ac is faster than the previous standards. So if you get faster internet some day you'll be covered. If you decide to get all of your devices on the 802.11ac all of your local network transfers will be a lot faster even with out faster internet.

n88tr

"flashing custom firmware"
what dear sir does that mean?

m4dcow

Custom Firmware, basically means installing a custom/os/rom/software that is not provided by your manufacturer, while the hardware you bought is crippled by software, but is capable of much more, ie: bridging etc.

In many cases the "bridge" I have suggested to you is the same hardware as some routers, but charged at a different price.

Something like this, even without firmware work, will bridge your wireless from the basement and give you 4 ports which your computers need no more than the Ethernet card drivers for to obtain internet.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Wireless-4-Port-Bridge-TEW-640MB/dp/B004FMI3DA"]Amazon.com : TRENDnet 300 Mbps Wireless N 4-Port Media Bridge TEW-640MB (Piano Black) : Electronics[/ame]

You just login to it, and enter in the wifi network you want to bridge (ssid) and the corresponding password and your are good to go. Want to plugin something else that wants internet (xbox, roku, etc..) the other ports will work for that, no drivers or real hassle.

n88tr

Interesting
Thanks for the info. I'll keep that in mind

n88tr

OK
card installed and used CD to install software. Reset
now this garbage,
“ASUS Wireless LAN card is taken apart from your desktop PC” when I run the application to connect to the wireless network at home. Apparently a lot of people have this issue.......

I went to the Asus page of my device
http://www.asus.com/Networking/PCEN15/#support_Download_30

And under Wireless there are 3 options, all appear to be driver packages. Do you think I should install only the latest or all of them?

m4dcow

Just install the latest driver.

Justin Meisse

so about dealing with shitty drivers...

oXYnary

Count Vertsalot wrote: »

Now I'm going to really confuse you. You should get a 802.11ac compliant wifi card. This will future proof you for a long while. 802.11ac is the newest wireless standard. You will need a 802.11ac capable router to get full speeds, but you can hold off on that for now. 802.11ac is faster than the previous standards. So if you get faster internet some day you'll be covered. If you decide to get all of your devices on the 802.11ac all of your local network transfers will be a lot faster even with out faster internet.

That is still in draft phase. Getting one now would not be wise. It would have been like getting one of the draft N 5ghz cards. They ended up only being able to work on one channel on the final version.

Edit: Your also assuming that the company would update said firmware to work with final version. How many companies have done this with their N versions?

oXYnary

m4dcow wrote: »

Custom Firmware, basically means installing a custom/os/rom/software that is not provided by your manufacturer, while the hardware you bought is crippled by software, but is capable of much more, ie: bridging etc.

In many cases the "bridge" I have suggested to you is the same hardware as some routers, but charged at a different price.

Something like this, even without firmware work, will bridge your wireless from the basement and give you 4 ports which your computers need no more than the Ethernet card drivers for to obtain internet.

Amazon.com : TRENDnet 300 Mbps Wireless N 4-Port Media Bridge TEW-640MB (Piano Black) : Electronics

You just login to it, and enter in the wifi network you want to bridge (ssid) and the corresponding password and your are good to go. Want to plugin something else that wants internet (xbox, roku, etc..) the other ports will work for that, no drivers or real hassle.

No. As was said, its still cheaper and gives more options to get a regular router that can take dd-wrt. The above, you only have a bridge/client - Period. Its only 2.4ghz, which means if you put it into a Mixed Wireless network, it could only do 150 at the most.

Same Price and can do more because it is a router. And it has 5ghz option which means full 300 if you have it hooked into a 5ghz router.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320088

For $15 more you can get 1 gig ports and usb support so you could have a high speed internal sharing network for any computer under it while having a shared usb backup drive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704144

oXYnary

n88tr wrote: »

OK
card installed and used CD to install software. Reset
now this garbage,
“ASUS Wireless LAN card is taken apart from your desktop PC” when I run the application to connect to the wireless network at home. Apparently a lot of people have this issue.......

I went to the Asus page of my device
http://www.asus.com/Networking/PCEN15/#support_Download_30

And under Wireless there are 3 options, all appear to be driver packages. Do you think I should install only the latest or all of them?

90% of the time, Never use the manufacturers software. Use the chipsets version. The linux page lists the chipset as the Realtek RTL8188CE
http://www.linux-hardware-guide.com/2012-11-04-asus-pce-n15-pcie-802-11n-300mbits-wps

Here is the page for the software:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=21&PFid=48&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true


Also, if you wanted to play BF3, you should have checked what your home network was already running. If it was a G network, you wasted your money. If it was a N only network, you could have gotten a 300mbs card for not much more.

n88tr

Yeah works fine now
thanks a ton guys

Alejandro Loza

Hello n88tr

I have the same card and the same problem: Asus Wireless Lan card is taken....

Could you mind tell what exactly you did to fix the problem??

Thanks in advance