I need some help with Airport Extreme and Base Stations.

[coleg]

Hello.

In the next week or so, our phone company is going to send us our DSL modem and instructions on how to set it up on our Dell computer upstairs.


Now.. when I come back from school this summer, I'm going to want to be able to have DSL in my room. My route is: wireless card and apple base station?

I now have a Power Mac G5. So I assumed I'll just have to buy a wireless card and install that (is it easy to install them)?

Then, I'm just wondering, will it be hard to get the base station to work with my Dell and the DSL modem? Will I have to make any fancy network things (I have no idea how)?

Will the base station reach from the upstairs floor, passed the main floor, and then to the basement?

Thanks guys, all the help I would appreciate.

(I'm home for winter break)

 

[moose]

I can't speak to the ease of install of the card into your G5, but I will say that simply setting up the Airport Extreme as a base station is a snap, and as someone who also has a Dell on my network, I can say that you should experience no trouble whatsoever.

As far as your wireless signal reaching through 2 floors... its possible, but it might be a weak signal. I love my Airport Extreme, but it doesn't exactly score highly in the signal strength category. If you find that the signal strength is an issue, you may want to consider buying an antenna to add to your Airport to boost the signal (Dr. Bott, maybe? http://www.drbott.com/prod/db.lasso?cat=AirPort)

 

[coleg]

Would a D-Link wireless router work for what I need it to? Or should I just stick to the Apple Base Station?

I talked to a friend's dad today. He said I would hook the wireless router (d-link, or basestatoin?) to the external dsl modem. Then hook my mom's dell, via a network cable, to the router. Then have my computer upgraded with the Airport Express card.

That sound right?

I would also consider this antenna if the signal isn't good enough.

Thanks guys.

 

[gost8go]

Would a D-Link wireless router work for what I need it to? Or should I just stick to the Apple Base Station?

Third party should work. I've been using a netgear wireless router for 2 years w/o any problem. Have you considered the Airport express station? It's cheap and has some real neat features like wireless music.

Then hook my mom's dell, via a network cable, to the router.

Is he doing this to save $ because network cables are cheaper than wireless cards? Maybe, but if your mom ever wants to her machine located away from the dsl drop you'll need a wirelss card anyway.

 

[coleg]

how does the aiport express station work? i plug into wall then plug to the dsl modem?

my mom's dell isn't going to have a wireless card until it gets moved away from the room it's in.

i was just wondering if what i described earlier would work.