Setting Up a Wireless Network

[Shrek]

Ok, here's the scenario:

Suppose I have two, maybe 3, computers in the house. One is a Mac, the others are PCs. They are no more than 40 feet from each other and are connected to the Internet via a cable modem (Comcast High-Speed Internet). What would I need to connect them both to a wireless network using Airport? How about without Airport (are there any alternatives)? Once I have the equipment I need, how do I then go about setting up the network?

 

[AlphaTech]

Get the airport base station and card (latest ones, not old/used models). Set up the base station with the Mac, and install the airport card into it. Get a good wireless card for the peesleeze systems and install those as well (do NOT get the cheapest ones out there). There are a few different settings that you can tweak to get better bandwidth between the systems (if you plan to do any kind of file sharing you will want to crank that as high as possible). If you want the peesleeze systems to just go online, then set the base for the most compatible settings (since you probably won't see any difference in your internet connection speed anyway).

Set the base to act as a DHCP server, giving out IP addresses and then name it (set a password as well). Check the documentation with the base station as well, in case I missed a minor step...

It wouldn't hurt to give Apple a call to see which pc wireless card is most compatible with the latest base station... A simple toll free call will save you more pain later...

Ignore at your own peril.

 

[shadowfax0]

I suggest you skip the Airport Base station, I had all hell's trouble setting that thing up with a PC, and really couldn't get it to work properly. So, I gave it to my dad who uses it happily with his powerbook at his pad in Boston (he's got a job up there at the moment) and I bought a Linksys wireless ROUTER. For God's sakes, don't buy jsut the 'Wireless Access Point"! I did just that, I thought I was going to go crazy, but it turns out being that it does not have the router part, you cannot directly hook it up to your cable modem, you have to have a seperate router. Anyhow, my mac connects to it no problem, and the PC I just had to install the drivers that came with, and it works just fine. I am using the Linksys USB wireless adapters for the PC BTW. And you can control the whole thing from a web browser, just type in 197.168.1.1 into Mozilla (or whatever...) default PW is admin/admin and all the setting are there. Have fun!

 

[Shrek]

Won't an Airport card just work with a PC? Apple's website says it will.

I would think that all I really need is two to three Airport cards--one for each computer. Though I could be wrong.

 

[bbarnhart]

Airport Base Station

The Airport Base Station works with PC using a WiFi card. I don't know how or if an Apple Airport Card works with a PC (pinnage, antenna and such). The base station works fine as it is based on a standard format.

If you question is not answered here, keep looking for the exact solution. There is a lot of docs on setting up wireless networks. My setup works great, but I don't have a cable modem so I don't know the exact answer. I'm not sure if the Apple Base Station can act like a router or not. Keep looking. You will really enjoy your wireless network, esp if you have a laptop.

 

[cleo]

Ignore what everyone else has said and go back to Alpha's advice. A Linksys or other brand router might be appealing because of price, but you'll pay for it in time and energy. The Airport solution may be pricier, but if you're going †o do i†
do it_right.

 

[kaltsasa]

The airport is hella good, I use it to dole out dsl to the rest of the folks in my apt. got an air port card in the imac and the ibook, connected the airport to a 5 port belkin switch, we got the 2 macs, 3 pc's and a laserwriter 16/600 all on our little lan, thanks to that wonderful machine known as an airport

 

[shadowfax0]

I jsut picked up the new Macworld Mag. (the one with the big iMac on the front) it gives VERY GOOD instructions for setting up a PC and Mac wireless network (or any other network for that matter) using an Airport Base Station, I highly suggest you pick it up! Cheers!