Help wiring new apartment

N

n00zler

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Messages
344
So, the wife and I will be moving to a new place next month, and I'm a bit stumped on how to best get the place wired up. We'll be using cable internet, and unfortunately there is only one cable jack in the whole place - (I looked through twice to make sure I wasn't missing one).

The cable jack is right by where the TV will go in the living room. The problem is, the second bedroom that will act as my office is at the exact opposite corner of the place. Far from convenient.

My current plan is to have the modem/router hidden behind the TV, with a switch that goes to the xbox, ps3, wii, and tivo. The problem will be getting a connection to the office which will have the my PC, our home server, and the network printer. I don't really like the idea of using wireless unless I have to - I'll be working from home part time which will require a VERY reliable internet connection, and I also do quite a bit of online gaming, and I've never known a single person that uses wireless for that be happy with it in the long run.

My current equipment is an Airport Extreme with N, and a 5 port 10/100 switch that I've had since....well probably high school. I'm considering the Netgear HDXB101 ethernet over powerline, but the building we're moving to was built in the 60s or 70s, and I'm sure the wiring isn't new. From what I've heard, older wiring gives pretty poor performance with those. I'm also considering grabbing a gigabit switch and running Cat6 (either between the carpet and wall or up around the edge of the ceiling), but I'm not sure that the wife will love that solution.

A friend recommended grabbing a pair of wireless routers and using one as an AP for the office, but again, I'm not sure I'll be happy with the speed it gives.

I'd appreciate any recommendations. I'd like to avoid buying too much new equipment for this. The apartment is about 1200sq feet, all on one level. Concrete construction. It's probably....100ft or so through a few walls from the place the cable comes into the house to where the office will be.

Thanks
 
Not sure if installation is free but for example in my brothers apartment they had to run a new line from the main box outside his apartment and ran the cable along the wall to whereever you want it but it will be ugly no matter what :confused:

Just keep in mind that even if your doing a wireless the internet speed will only be good up to what they are offering in your package.

Are you planning on doing a lot of file transfering? home theater? I would just run the cable to your office or cat 5/6.
 
I suspect the dual WiFi setup will probably be your best bet, especially if you won't be able to run cables. So long as you don't need to transmit large files from your office to the TV (eg: streaming 1080p video to your Xbox??), Wifi should have enough bandwidth for most things.

I've used a setup like this in the past with a pair of Linksys WRT-54G's flashed with DD-WRT, and setting up one as a router, and the other as a client/bridge for the remote network (in this case it was in my basement for my lab).

I've recently purchased some Linksys WRT-160N's (v3.0) and had great success upgrading them with DD-WRT.

Thoughts?
 
I might do the WRT-160N's, but ya, I'll need to be streaming 720p and 1080p video from the server to the TiVo, as well as to my main PC. I've used DD-WRT in the past and really liked it, and TBH I'm not thrilled with my Airport (not much you can do with them).
 
Hrm, well if there is the need to stream, you're up cabling creek with no paddle I suspect. Wifi just doesn't have the bandwidth to stream 1080p cleanly.
 
I know that Comcast will charge $30/hour to snake the cables through walls and actually install new jacks for you, wherever you want.

As for the 160N's, I just picked up a few refurbs from Tigerdirect for $30 each, and I have them set up as a wireless bridge from my computer to my 360/wii/blu-ray, works pretty damn well.

Now that the 360 supports external media, keep a hard drive handy with all your movies on it, this way you'll only have to stream netflix and access the web for games.
 
I'd give the ethernet over powerline adapters a chance. I currently live in a VERY old rental grade farmhouse that I'm renting while transitioning towns and property stuff. The wiring it in is horrible..HORRIBLE. Yet a pair of those adapters worked fine for me. They're cheap enough to make it worth trying, and a heck of a lot better performance than wireless.
 
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