mbm wrote:

On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:10:11 +0000 steveydoteu alug@stevey.eu allegedly wrote:

...

ALUG,

I am looking into a purchase, nothing to high end, just as a means of discarding a number of cables in my room. The problem arises when I have no experience or knowledge of using WAPs before.

My current setup is as follows:

BTHomeHub (2nd gen I believe) is connected into powerline adaptors one of which is used as an outlet in this room. I have then connected a LAN switch to the adaptor, which is then cabled to all machines that require access.

With this in mind all current devices can actually be used via Wifi, if it was not for the HomeHub wifi being utter crap. So I am looking for advice or suggestions for a WAP that is around ~£50 that will cope with a main desktop, media server, and various consoles.

Steve

Your configuration sounds unusual. If I understand you correctly, your BT hub is connected direct to your phoneline and you run a mains wired connection off that to another powerline unit in a room where you then run a bunch of wired devices off a switch. You want to replace that switch with a WAP and do away with the cables? Why? If you are having performance problems, the most likely culprit may be the powerline connection - particularly if you have any extension cables in the loop.

I'm assuming that you are using powerline because you cannot get a good enough wireless signal from the existing BT hub in the room with the desktop server and consoles. You could just replace the BT hub with a decent ADSL router - most come wireless enabled these days and usually also include a four port switch so you can hang four devices (or more if you cascade switches as you seem to be doing) from one DSL connection. Any of a number of companies make resaonable DSL routers these days, though I can recommend Linksys, Zoom or Thomson (despite the fact that Thomson actually make the BT hub...). I've had problems with Netgear in the past and the low end Belkin kit can cause problems (though to be fair I've had good performance out of a really cheap (£28) Belkin WAP).

In my own network I currently use a Cisco 837 ADSL router in front of an ASUS WL 500g (running openwrt). I use the wired ports off the ASUS more than the wifi capability though.

If you really want to move to wireless, you will, of course need to add wifi cards to the devices you wish to connect which will add to the expense of the new WAP or wireless router. If I were you, I'd check the performance of your powerline first though.

Mick

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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?

Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt

I think I may have explained it poorly in my first message, I was pretty tired at the time.

At present the existing setup is as follows:

Upstairs on the landing is the router, this is connected via a short RJ45 cable to a powerline adaptor.

There are then additional adaptors in three other rooms downstairs, one of which being mine.

The adaptor in my room is then connected to a LAN swich using another short RJ45 cable. My desktop and so forth are then patched into the network via this LAN switch.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:41:37PM +0000, steveydoteu wrote:

I am a bit new to this, what advantges would openwrt and so forth give me?

You end up with a router that will be mostly running Free Software which means you can add extra packages for increased functionality and hackability. This could well help you overcome limitations in vendor supplied firmwares and keep the hardware more useful for a longer period of time. Not to mention that you can turn a £40 router into something that has the capabilities of a commercial router that might cost hundreds of pounds.

Of course, you might just opt to keep the vendor firmware on there, but at least it gives you the potential for more choice in the future.

Adam

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 12:54:47AM +0000, steveydoteu wrote:

So for the most part, what router would you recommend?

Something that will run openwrt. ;)

(seriously, I don't know, my hardware is a few years old now and I think unavailable new, you'll have to do research yourself if you want to go that route)

Adam

I have an older version of this router running OpenWrt and X-Wrt, and it works well.

However, it doesn't have an awful lot of flash memory so if you want to do anything clever which requires installing more software, you way want to look for something a bit more recent that will have space for you to play with.

That said, it's a cracking router that I've been using with very little down-time for over 5 years, I think.

Peter.

2009/2/11 steveydoteu alug@stevey.eu:

I have come to some conclusions on my situation and plan to upgrade my router to something along the lines of http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linksys-WRT54GL-Wireless-G-Broadband-Router/dp/B000E...

Using openWRT and so forth, this should in turn hopefully improve connectivity.

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On Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:32:08 +0000 steveydoteu alug@stevey.eu allegedly wrote:

I have come to some conclusions on my situation and plan to upgrade my router to something along the lines of http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linksys-WRT54GL-Wireless-G-Broadband-Router/dp/B000E...

Using openWRT and so forth, this should in turn hopefully improve connectivity.

Steve

Good choice. I like Linksys kit. I run openwrt on an Asus WL500G. At the time I bought it I couldn't get hold of a Linksys box for love nor money.

One of the nice things about openwrt is that it gives you lots more tweakable options - including the ability to increase transmission power (and hence workable network distance).

Have fun.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?

Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------