Definitely clueless..Please help!

[Orroborus]

Hey there.

First let me tell you that I am really NOT technically savvy. I mean I can follow instructions (I was able to connect a 2wire router to 3 laptops) but that's about it.

So my problem is, I have 4 laptops.
(1 Asus HD vision M50VMseries with 11abgn capabilies,
1 HP Pavilion Pc with probably 11abg,
1 Acer Aspire 5920 with 11abg,
and 1 old HP pc with probably 11ab capabilites.)

The Acer plays online games and needs lots of bandwidth,
the Asus downloads 700-800mb movies,
the HP pavilion downloads lots of music and video
and the old pc surfs the net.

I am in a 2400 sq foot home and all 4 laptops want to connect to a wireless router. 3 of which are either 1 story up or in the basement. This is a technical nightmare for me...

How can I do this? What router do I need? What setup do I do?
I have read your reviews and guidelines, and frankly, the more I read, the more confused I get... Please help me..

[thiggins]

Trying to do all that you want to do with one wireless router covering 2400 sq feet and 3 floors is probably going to be a stretch. Even draft 11n won't provide the kind of bandwidth you're looking for, especially if you have everything going at once.

I strongly suggest you put your downloaders on a wired connection. Or they are going mess up your gaming.

If you ask specific questions, I can be of more help.

[Orroborus]

Thanks for the reply.

I have been planning to have the gamer and/or the movie downloader wired to the router.
The thing I am really confused about is what router will I need to buy? I thought having a 11b/g will slow the network so buying a draft n would be useless. Also, in my previous home, I have set up the 11g 2wire to connect to the gamer on LAN while the 2 downloaders were wireless. This worked for the most part until the gamer complained of lags and high ping. So when we moved to the new house, I wanted to be able to provide for both the gamer and the downloaders. I am willing to set up in any way, just tell me how to do it.
Will I be able to connect them all in 1 modem? Can I do a piggyback or something?


Thank you so much!!

[thiggins]

Lag and/or high ping will always be a part of gaming via wireless. Many things can cause the throughput on a wireless connection to temporarily drop to virtually 0 for a few seconds. Draft 11n is actually worse than 11g and tends to have high throughput variation in addition to these "dropouts".

If you are going to have a busy WLAN with both draft 11n and 11g clients using continuous bandwidth (streaming, downloading), then you should have separate 11g and draft 11n routers.

[Orroborus]

I see.
Is this possible with a motorola SB5102 modem? I think there is only one wired connection possible.

If I were to go with two routers, which ones should I buy?
2400 sq ft home. Modem on main floor. 2 computers on 2nd floor
2 more computers in the basement. Mostly 1-2 rooms apart.
A couple of 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz wireless phones.

I have been planning to buy just the 11g router now then the n router when the final specs come up. Again, which ones are my best bet for performance and reliability.

[Orroborus]

I am opting for either the Linksys WRT 610N or the D-Link Xtreme N DIR-655. I don't know if these are the best choices for my situation. If anyone has any experience with these items, please don't hesitate to post about it.
I also saw a cheap Linksys WRT 610N on ebay for as low as 120 cad. Any thoughts on these?

[thiggins]

Is this possible with a motorola SB5102 modem? I think there is only one wired connection possible.
Read How To Convert a Wireless Router into an Access Point (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30338/228/) and How To Add an Access Point to a Wireless Router (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30355/228/)

[quote=Orroborus;10982]If I were to go with two routers, which ones should I buy? 2400 sq ft home. Modem on main floor. 2 computers on 2nd floor
2 more computers in the basement. Mostly 1-2 rooms apart.
A couple of 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz wireless phones.
You can get most anything for an 11g router since the technology is well-developed. You just need to make sure that routing speed is higher than your Internet connection's. Use the Router Charts (http://smallnetbuilder.com/router-charts/) for that.

Locate the wireless routers as centrally as you can to give yourself the best chance of whole house coverage.

I recommend you get rid of the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz cordless phones and get Dect 6.0 phones. The current phones will interfere with your wireless network.

[Orroborus]

Thank you so much thiggins for all the time and effort you gave in answering me and these posts. I know it must be very tiresome to see the same question asked again and again. So I really appreciate what you are doing.

Unfortunately, my brother had already bought a router. It seems the family needed it bad and so took it upon himself to buy one. He chose a Linksys WRT410N which is still pretty good since it was one of my previous choices according to your wireless router chart. (I didn't know that the G routers were in the router chart under LAN & WAN, all I found was the wireless router chart for N routers)

Anyway, I will be contemplating on adding an access point if the range is not enough. Again, thank you for your patience.

[thiggins]

I think you mean WRT400N, not 410N.

The WRT54G2 is an 11g router. You can see other 11g routers in the Wireless Charts by selecting the Azimuth benchmarks.

[Orroborus]

No. I think I bought the Linksys WRT 410N. It is working pretty fine in the range I wanted. However, like you said. Lagging does occur. Occasional disconnection too but it seems to be working well. My family have been happy with it.
I really appreciate your help. I will see if I can help others here find their router as you helped me. Thanks again. :D

[thiggins]

No. I think I bought the Linksys WRT 410N.
I checked with Linksys. The WRT410N does not exist. The WRT400N does.