LAN at home

Eamonn Brophy

Okay so i'm doing this for the first time and i'm just wonering about advice and if I've got this right!

I'm settup up a wireless LAN at home, I've got my cable modem which is going to go into the wireless router, then another cable goes from one the wireless router's 4 ports because i want to keep that wired and then once that's up and running I can connect two laptops from upstairs on that connection. does that sound right? one laptp runs vista should it just connect and run? would this setup run for say lan game of age of empires or something similair?

BoB_BoT

all sounds good. don't worry about the games, you'll have no problem playing over lan.

What sort of security are you using on the wireless router? Connecting the laptops (even the one with vista) shouldn't be too difficult. It's a case of picking up the wireless signal, clicking connect to it, and entering the password.

So you're going:

Cable Modem -> Wireless Router -> Wireless PC 1, Wireless PC 2, Wired Device

That'll work fine for any gaming setup / internet use. How big is your house, solid concrete? Anything unusual about it? I'd say you'll encounter no problems with the setup.

For the router itself, use security on your wireless signal (use wpa or wpa2 if available), change the login password on the wireless router than the stock given with it.
With the password for WPA use a random password generator, save the key in a notepad file (to a flash drive) for copying and pasting on the laptops rather than retyping it.

Eamonn Brophy

BoB_BoT wrote: »

all sounds good. don't worry about the games, you'll have no problem playing over lan.

What sort of security are you using on the wireless router? Connecting the laptops (even the one with vista) shouldn't be too difficult. It's a case of picking up the wireless signal, clicking connect to it, and entering the password.

So you're going:

Cable Modem -> Wireless Router -> Wireless PC 1, Wireless PC 2, Wired Device

That'll work fine for any gaming setup / internet use. How big is your house, solid concrete? Anything unusual about it? I'd say you'll encounter no problems with the setup.

For the router itself, use security on your wireless signal (use wpa or wpa2 if available), change the login password on the wireless router than the stock given with it.
With the password for WPA use a random password generator, save the key in a notepad file (to a flash drive) for copying and pasting on the laptops rather than retyping it.

The house i your average 4 bedroom detached. There'll be less than 30 metres between the router and the laptops. I don't won the router yet, bought one of kopmlett this morning. Thanks for the advice !

I've an xbox and should be purchasing a ps3 sometime before the end of the summer...how will they hold up to the security on the network? Can the router only handle 4 devices at once?

BoB_BoT

ah ha all sounds good.
you may have to look into port forwarding to get the ps3 to work correctly, but that's no biggie, there are tons of guides and sites on how to do it with just about every router :P

security shouldn't be an issue with the xbox or ps, are you wiring them to the router or planning to go wireless?
It's limited physically to 4 devices through the ethernet ports on your router, however, you could increase this by adding a switch (8/16/48 port etc..).
But the router can have a lot more devices attached via wireless.

Eamonn Brophy

I was going to keep the consoles wireless, thanks agains for all the help man

I just thought maybe if i had security on the router it would block the cnsoles? maybe i'm wrong.

BoB_BoT

nay bother
nope the security is purely for protecting your network from someone misusing it.