Help With the Setup of my Home Network!

pratik97

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Oct 29, 2003
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Well here's the situation. I have comcast cable coming into my house. I have setup a home network on the top level of my home. I have a cable modem/wireless B router and have it hooking up 2 computers on the top level. I have recently made the basement finished and wanted to setup a network there. I was an idiot and didn't extend a Cat5 cable down to the basement so unfortunately I'm not thinking of that now.

With my laptop down in the basement I have a signal of "low" but still get decent speeds. (1MB down, 250K up) - Not too bad but I tested it for around 20 minutes and lost my connection for 1 second which to me isn't very good considering I play some online games and even losing a connection for a second I get dropped from games.

I had called up comcast and asked about getting an extra IP, but with that I'll have to purchase a new cable modem and router (because I want to hook up a desktop and a laptop in the basement) and on top of that pay an extra $7 a month for the IP.

Then I thought I would just get an access point and put that on the middle floor to help extend the signal? And then just purchase an extra wireless card and put it in my desktop so that would be online as well, however I was thinking to download large files on my desktop (which I do sometimes) that may be a serious pain.

Could someone please explain to me what is my best option here? I'd rather not pay Comcast to get a new IP but what would my options be? I like the extender idea and put it on the middle floor but I know it won't be as reliable as having a patch cable into the machine. What do you guys think I should do?

Sorry for the long winded story but any response is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
 

upec

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Dec 31, 2007
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I had similar configuration too and I also cannot get relible connection in the basement. I intall a wired router (It was cheaper to get a wired router than a wireless access point) and use wireless router as a access point at the first floor. I have reliable connecion on all 3 floor now.
 

pratik97

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Oct 29, 2003
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I'm confused about what you mean. Do you mean to get a wired router and put it on my first floor? I do not have any wires coming down to the first floor in order for it to be plugged in. Is it possible to use a wireless access point and put it in my basement and use that to extend the signal and use a wired port into it?

Someone have any suggestions?
 

andy655321

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Nov 28, 2002
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Why would you have to get the second wireless card for your now wired computer? I am a bit confused there. Anyhow, if you do, the only speed difference would be transfering files between machines, not Internet. With a cable connection, you'll most likely only get about 1-3 MBps at any given time, so an 802.11b connection will go up to 11 MBps, so you wouldn't notice a difference.