Working on my parents house trying to setup a wire/wireless network and looking at what to get. We have about 8 wire drops throughout the house and want all to be live. But also want to have wireless access throughout 1-2 access points possibly. now im guessing that by best bet is probably a switch greater than 8 ports in the basement where all the drops are routed to. have comcast cable internet....will i be able to just run my cable modem straight into the switch and then plug to wireless access points into the switch to get wireless throughtout also? Last questions is there is a linksys 4port wireless router now, is it possible to use it in anyway to act as an access point and not have to buy another? Im fairly new to networking, i can setup a few computers on a single router or setup a wireless network easily just never did them both together and never used a switch before either. any help is apperciated
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Help a noob with wired/wireless home networking
- Thread starter Justshoe
- Start date
Orinthical
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,635
Cable Modem ----> Router ----> Switch ----> Computers
You cannot connect the cable modem directly to the switch - only one computer would get an IP (in most cases) and it would be a direct connection to the internet. In short it is unsafe and would not work.
Get a nice sixteen to twenty-four port switch to go in the basement. Connect one of the ports on the router's LAN section to the first port on the basement switch then connect the other drops to the remaining ports.
As for wireless access points - depending on the model you may be able to re-use the linksys you already have. Flash it with DD-WRT to get the most out of it. If you're looking to just purchase some - grab a couple Buffalo WHR-G54S or WHR-HP-G54 routers and put DD-WRT on them. They make nice inexpensive access point units.
You cannot connect the cable modem directly to the switch - only one computer would get an IP (in most cases) and it would be a direct connection to the internet. In short it is unsafe and would not work.
Get a nice sixteen to twenty-four port switch to go in the basement. Connect one of the ports on the router's LAN section to the first port on the basement switch then connect the other drops to the remaining ports.
As for wireless access points - depending on the model you may be able to re-use the linksys you already have. Flash it with DD-WRT to get the most out of it. If you're looking to just purchase some - grab a couple Buffalo WHR-G54S or WHR-HP-G54 routers and put DD-WRT on them. They make nice inexpensive access point units.
Orinthical
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,635
No, things won't work at all. Comcast only allows you one IP address by DHCP unless you pay for additional IP's through the Business service. One computer, at random, will get an IP, the rest will go into "I can't get an IP" mode and you'll be stuck. You -need- a router in there somewhere.now even w/o a static ip from comcast, will everything still work ok and just run dynamic ip's auto to all the other drops?
Orinthical
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,635
You have one "real" IP from Comcast is what I'm saying (whether it's normal service or static IP), so if you hook the modem directly to the switch, you'll only be able to use -one- computer.NO i'll have one then the router will just assign static to the switch right?
If you hook it up as I suggested, your router will handle DHCP on your LAN side and NAT will do the rest and everything works.
Cable Modem ---(WAN side)---> Router ---(LAN side)---> Switch ----> Computers
Your router gets the "real" IP address on its WAN side (either DHCP or static) and in turn hands out private IP addresses via dhcp on the LAN side. You connect the switch port 1 to one of the ports on the LAN side of your router then connect all the computers to the remaining ports on the switch. The computers will be able to access the internet, etc.
get a wireless router and switch where hte home run is.
then all the jacks will be live. on the 2nd floor put in a access point.
Buffalo HP-G54, run 2 of them, one as the router in the basememnt, and put the other in WDS bridge mode on the 2nd floor.
then all the jacks will be live. on the 2nd floor put in a access point.
Buffalo HP-G54, run 2 of them, one as the router in the basememnt, and put the other in WDS bridge mode on the 2nd floor.
Yea thats exactly what i think we are going to do. I think it'll work fine. Both wireless networks can be setup with same security and all so that you wouldnt have to change networks from the basement to the top floor right?
Both router gets same SSID and same security password. So you can roam.
I always gotta mess around with setting up WDS when i do it. I never remember the steps.
But i think u want to plug one router in, set the switch as bridge mode, log into it. Enable WDS, enter the MAC ID(on bottom of router), into the field, click enable. Set the SSID, Set password, Change the internal IP if u want.
Unplug that one, and plug in the router. Enable WDS on that, and give it the mac of the otehr, apply all the same SSID and password.
And your good.
Mite have missed a step here or there but ull figure it out.
This setup works good, we use it many times on various applications. One home we put 4 bridges, and 1 main router. Worked great.