Wireless Router Selection

I want to connect 2 desktop computers at home about 75 ft apart with 2 walls between the rooms. The wired computer is DSL and windows XP. The wireless computer is windows 98. I have been doing research on routers and the most troublesom complaint that would bother me is frequent loss of a connection on the wireless computer. Can the forum give me their suggestion for a router choice. The Linksys 802.11g has some of the best reviews but it also has lower performance at 60 ft than D-Link, so I'm not sure how to make the best decision. Hope you can help.

 

What sort of walls?

Is the wireless system connecting to anything right now?

 

Nothing is wireless. The DSL computer is XP and the other computer in another bedroom is now a dial out modem and windows 98.

The 2 walls are drywall painted walls, and if I go direct through the wall it is about 25ft to the other computer. The 75 ft was through one door and through the other door to get to the computer.

 

25 feet and drywall - I would expect most any wireless product to work fine. If you like the Linksys specs (I do) then go with it.

 

I just had a chat with Linksys and was surprised to be told I could not do a wireless setup with a computer with windows 98. So, if that is true, I don't know where to go from here. He said it had to be a wired connection. I was told by Alltel that I could do wireless with windows 98. Not sure who to believe.

 

Newt,I got some bad information from Linksys. However they did not have a wireless USB adapter for windows 98. I have also checked with D-Link and they do have a USB adapter for windows 98. Any experience with D-Link? I just thought it would be easier to just use the USB rather than remove the cover to install a card. I see there are 2 types of USB, a 1.1 and 2.0 port. How do you tell the difference? Do you see any problem using USB? My choice is Linksys with an installed card or D-Link with the USB adapter.

 

D-Link makes good stuff.

The only warning I'd put in here concerns USB and networking - especially USB with Win98. Sometimes it works great but when it doesn't, it's a real mess to try and fix.

If the seller will be willing to take stuff back, then certainly worth a try.

Don't try with USB2 on Win98 though unless someone on here can say how it works. Even with XP you have to load SP1 before USB2 will work.

If there is any reasonable way for you to run wire, that is probably your best bet at this point. Within a year or so though, the way wireless is exploding, it will probably be as solid as wired and it might be worth changing over.

 

I don't understand some of what you say Newt, like SP1 and USB2, but I'm convinced that I should stick with the adapter card installed. Wire is just too difficult with the room across the hall. So I guess I'll go with either D-Link or Linksys. I appreciate the warnings.

 

SP = service pack = major updates to an operating system after the initial release of the operating system. Not done so much with earlier versions but from NT and later, quite a bit of it.

I was speaking of XP SP1 = service pack #1 which was the first major update to XP.

USB version 2 is an update to USB with extra features and generally a better release. But if your system isn't designed to use it, it won't work. Devices that need USB2 and are attached to a system that only allows for USB 1.x are good only for use as paper weights.

I like USB for digital cameras, printers, and quite a few other items. I do not like it or trust it for networking at this point.

 

Thanks Newt for taking the time to explain. I appreciate it. How do you know when you have USB2? My new computer is only a month old and is a dell. would it have USB2?

 

In your situation I would use this wireless card.
You can get the antenna better exposed incase the computer is stuffed away in a corner or in a cabinet.

If the distance appears to be too great you can always add this peice halfway between PCs.

 

Thank you for the suggestion. I had not come across this in my research. I see it's a bit more expensive but certainly worth it to overcome some problems.

By the way, how do you do a link with one word as you have with this?

 

When you put a URL link in a thread, the display you see isn't really the link you posted even though it looks like it is.

The forum software (in fact, many sorts of forum software) does a little fancy footwork. I'm going to put in an example but with spaces so it will show what I put in rather than translate. You just have to do the same but without the spaces.

Microsoft's online help URL is http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx and if I just left it like that, you would see what looked like the URL but it would have tags in it to tell the forum software how to treat it. If I wanted to simply display the word HELP but have it point to the link, it would look like

[ u r l = http: // support. microsoft. com/ default.aspx ] HELP [ / u r l ]

when you typed it but would look like

HELP

when you saved the post.

 

Great Newt. Sure learned something that is very helpful.