I'm trying to bring a wireless signal from one side of the house to another but the way the attic is setup, running a wire is extremely difficult. The signal strength is decent on the far side of the house, but that is where I have my desktop.

Can a wireless bridge be setup to 'grab' the wireless signal and then change to ethernet? Rather than its more traditional use of making a wired network wireless. If so, what bridges would you recommend for under 40 dollars if possible?


Thanks!

1/16/2008 9:20:22 AM

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1134692497433&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

1/16/2008 9:27:03 AM

just get a refurb at tiger direct. you'll need a switch more than likely to take it from wireless to wired with an access point or bridge. i have this setup in my house and it works fine.

1/16/2008 9:27:43 AM

1) get a dd-wrt capable router (wrt54g, a buffalo one, etc.)
2) set it up as a "wireless client bridge"
3) profit

1/16/2008 10:13:07 AM

Range extender might work



but it'll cost more than $40

1/16/2008 10:16:02 AM

just get a USB wireless adapter for the desktop and be done.

1/16/2008 10:59:44 AM

Quote :

"1) get a dd-wrt capable router (wrt54g, a buffalo one, etc.) 2) set it up as a "wireless client bridge" 3) profit"

agreed. and the nice thing about this is if you stop needing a bridge (if you move or whatever), you've still got a wireless router...instead of just a bridge which you might not have a need for.

1/16/2008 11:53:47 AM

actually, if you install dd-wrt or tomato, simply boosting the signal from the default 42 may be sufficient depending on how large your house is:





[Edited on January 16, 2008 at 12:02 PM. Reason : i wouldn't jack it up all the way though...]

1/16/2008 12:01:12 PM

yeah, i have mine set to 81

1/16/2008 12:04:37 PM

What happens if you turn it all the way up?? Or, rather, what are you risking going wrong?

1/16/2008 12:56:35 PM

supposedly you can fry the transmitter, i've never tried, but even with no background in circuits or RF, it sounds like a reasonable warning.

I'm sure someone here knows enough to confirm/explain.

1/16/2008 1:04:20 PM

i question the linearity of the amp at high power

you are probably going to saturate it long before you get to the max power

and at those levels you are probably not FCC compliant anymore

1/16/2008 1:04:20 PM

Quote :

"and at those levels you are probably not FCC compliant anymore"

Probably...

My boss is having trouble with having a good signal around his lake house... he's bought several different routers (before he mentioned it to me) and none of them pick up well when he's at the opposite end of the house from the router. The problem is his place is huge and he works from a bunch of different locations in the house so just moving the modem/router doesn't end up helping.

So, I'm thinking of trying to put this software on his old router and seeing how much I crank up the power. Right now he's able to get a signal anywhere in the house like 90% of the time but sometimes it starts going in and out and can be a real headache. He got a nice "linksys gaming router" that basically isn't any better and just looks cool. Not to mention his laptops builtin card doesn't support N anyways. So, I don't think it will take much of a boost to get his whole place covered... are there any simple numbers on how much of a real distance increase you can expect with this firmware safely?

1/16/2008 1:16:09 PM

he needs to spend some of the scratch he obviously has to run wire throughout the place and then put wireless AP's in appropriate spots so as to create location wide coverage

sitting in a 5 million dollar home and trying to squeeze all this out of one wireless router is retarded stupid

[Edited on January 16, 2008 at 1:22 PM. Reason : *]

1/16/2008 1:21:03 PM

Yeah, but he won't do it unless there are no other options and the wireless not working right really pisses him off... it's so close to working as is, it's worth at least trying to bump the power on one cheapo router and having the problem solved. At worst I fry something and a router that wasn't being used anyways goes in the trash.

1/16/2008 1:34:52 PM

i think the main problem when you turn up the transmit power is that due to the crappy cheap radio, the signal will get louder but a lot shittier. i have seen someone show the results on a spectrum analyzer and thats basically the result.

1/17/2008 10:26:45 AM