Airport extreme question

[lucy6776]

New to this forum, do not have a Mac yet, very much a networking novice....and want to buy a imac...soon.

My question is...I now have an older(4 or 5 yrs) pc at home with a dsl line. If I buy a Mac can I also buy an airport extreme and configure it through the older pc to run the imac wirelessly in another room in the house? If so, how difficult is this. Any other ideas to get both on the internet?

Thanks

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes, as the Airport Extreme comes with a CD with the Airport Utility software for Windows, which makes it easy as pie to configure the AEBS.

 

[lucy6776]

Thanks for the quick reply....one more for you...

I now have a Netgear wireless router that someone set up to run a laptop, but it has not been used for about a year now. Would the Imac work with that router?

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes of course. If it has a web interface you can access and use to configure, almost any other router will work fine with your iMac.

The AEBS is just a commodity and makes life a little bit easier, also some routers have problems, like the connection sometimes fails and a restart is in order.

Since I move to the AEBS I had no problems with my internet connection.

 

[cderalow]

as long as you have the SSID and network key for the router, or the ability to change its configuration;

yes.

all apple products use the new 802.11n standard for wireless access, which will work with any wireless router or access point that complies with any of the 802.11 wireless standards.

 

[oculus42]

all apple products use the new 802.11n standard for wireless access, which will work with any wireless router or access point that complies with any of the 802.11 wireless standards.

You have to be a little careful with a statement like. All new Macs support 802.11a/b/g/n and should work with any router that supports them. You have to be careful with routers supporting one of the early 802.11n Draft 1.0 versions as they may not communicate properly. This is the case with my Linksys WRT150N, which uses some offshoot of 802.11 Draft-N 1.0. Also, some of the channel-bonding "SpeedBooster" and similar technologies are not part of the 802.11 spec and might cause problems, but can usually be disabled.

 

[ftaok]

My question is...I now have an older(4 or 5 yrs) pc at home with a dsl line. If I buy a Mac can I also buy an airport extreme and configure it through the older pc to run the imac wirelessly in another room in the house? If so, how difficult is this. Any other ideas to get both on the internet?

The PC will only be able to configure the AEBS (assuming you get the newest one) if it is running WinXP SP3, Vista, or Win7. Macs have to be running 10.5 or later.

 

[lucy6776]

Thanks for the replies.....good luck to me!