Wii's Wireless Card

AceCard Jones

I remember this being discussed in some other thread a while back.
But I can't remember the name of it, anyway people were saying the Wireless card in the Wii wasn't b/g.Apparently it is.

Wikipedia wrote:

The Wii unit is able to connect to the Internet through its built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and through a USB-to-Ethernet adaptor

scrapland

Wiki is right and also wrong. Basically the wii can connect to any b/g wireless router but it only does so in B mode.

The WiFi card is 802.11 B/G however only operates in the "802.11 B" Frequency Range and offers 20.07dBm or 101.62 mW Output.

And in doing so, limits the throughput of all the computers connected to the router to B speed also.


If you need proof simply switch your wireless router / access points to G only and see the wii fail to connect.

It's possible they could correct this via a firmware patch but its a strange decision Nintendo have chosen to implemet. Much like the DVD media that isnt really DVD

Maybe the wii lite, they have announced for next year with dvd playback will also fully support G speeds, to me it sounds like they've rushed the hardware out.

AceCard Jones

You said it changes all computers connected to the router to B?
Is that permanent?I noticed the one and only time I had my PC and my Wii online at the same time my PC got knocked offline a few times.

parsi

Shouldn't do- if you go mixed b & G it will deal with B clients and G clients at their native speeds.

TBH it makes little difference on a home network even if you have to set it to B - B has a theoretical rate of 11mb and your DSL connection will be much less than this so even for a few devices you'd be fine.

AceCard Jones

That's true.But still, just in-case.I mean I do have two PC's a Laptop and the Wii running in some cases all at once so I want things to be as optimal as possible.

parsi

Safe as houses Ace...

AceCard Jones

Excuse my naiveness on this, I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to Wireless connections.Ask me anything about hardware or building PC's or virus removal etc and I'm your man.Just never really cared so much as to look into anything about this.

When you say "safe as houses..."
you mean to say my other machines will still run B/G?

DemonOfTheFall

Saying that 11mb is heaps is a load of cack.
Take your 11mbps 802.11b conenction, bang on WPA and a bit of noise in the wireless bands, from having a few PCs using the connection, or having neighbours or using a microwave or cordless phone and you're going to be extremely stuck for bandwidth. If you have a decent net connection like 4/5/6/8 megs that 11mbps is just not true.
Just by turning on WPA you lose about half of the 11mb right off the bat.

parsi

With all due respect - my comments related to a normal (to those of us in ericom.esat.utv land) connection of 2mb and then even with overheads your local devices are unlikely to be suffering due to being set to 802.11b

For instance I run my iMac wirelessly, it streams internet audio to my airport express happily and I can also from a third device browse the web easily and I'm currently down to 802.11b

In any case a wireless link will max out at half its rated speed over an ideal distance. Try it without WPA and it'll be roughly the same. 802.11b will get you an average of 5.5Mb and 802.11g will get you ~22Mb and remember those are megabits not megabytes. Most of it is down to collision avoidance rather than collision detection.

scrapland

AceCard Jones wrote:

You said it changes all computers connected to the router to B?
Is that permanent?I noticed the one and only time I had my PC and my Wii online at the same time my PC got knocked offline a few times.

No. just whilst your wii is on the net, your computers even though connected normally via G drop down to B (and its 11mb theoretical maximum), but as soon as the wii is powered off the network they switch back to G speeds.

Mixed mode means it switches between the two and allows G/B to mingle. But when they do - they do so at the slower speed setting.

It's like harddrives and ram in a computer. If you have an ATA 133 HDD in your computer and add a second ATA 100 HDD, the bus speed is governed by the slowest device and hence drops down to ATA100 even for the faster device.

AceCard Jones

Thanks for that Scrapland.

Orion

Picking up my Wii today - a mate got one in Dundalk for me yesterday

I use WPA and Mac Filtering on my router. Is the MAC address on a label on the Wii or can I find it somewhere in the menus?

scrapland

Macros42 wrote:

Picking up my Wii today - a mate got one in Dundalk for me yesterday

I use WPA and Mac Filtering on my router. Is the MAC address on a label on the Wii or can I find it somewhere in the menus?

Its in the menus / wii settings / wii connect 24 or some such.

AceCard Jones

Yeah it's in the Wii menu.Just go to Wii settings and then console information.

monkeyfudge

It's worth noting at this time of the year wireless networks tend to be reduced in efficiency by about 25% due to shiny baubles on xmas trees and lots of xmas lights creating interference.

Orion

monkeyfudge wrote:

It's worth noting at this time of the year wireless networks tend to be reduced in efficiency by about 25% due to shiny baubles on xmas trees and lots of xmas lights creating interference.

That damn grinch screwing everything up

Thanks for the info lads.

scrapland

monkeyfudge wrote:

It's worth noting at this time of the year wireless networks tend to be reduced in efficiency by about 25% due to shiny baubles on xmas trees and lots of xmas lights creating interference.

Which can I also add can cause havok with your wii.

The sensor bar is just a couple of LED's that the wiimote uses to judge poisiton. There is no info going from the sensor bar to the wii, the cable in the wii just provides power to the led's.

So please remember if you have a xmas tree near your TV its covered in fairy lights which are LED's and they **** the remote sensor up. Turn your tree lights off whilst playing the wii.

Gone West

99.9% of fairy lights arent LEDs.

Also, the reason its in B mode, not G is a software thing.
A wee bit complicated, though.
If someone asks on the wireless forum, I might type up a reply

KeRbDoG

The sensor bar is just IR LEDs at both ends. It just gets power from the Wii console.