Looking for some basic home networking help.

[bigdavethehorn]

I have a Netgear D834G ADSL router which provides internet access via wifi to my laptop.

My desktop doesn’t have a wireless receiver, however I own another router, a Belkin F5D8230.

Is it possible to connect the Belkin router to the desktop with some CAT5 cable, then pick up the wireless signal from the Netgear router?

 

[C7J0yc3]

Yes, but you would have to use some version of DD-WRT, openWRT, tomato etc. Assuming that both routers have hardware to support an open distro you can then setup WDS to bond the two access points. The downside to this is that you are going to have issues with any sort of wireless security unless you are using PSK (and even then not all routers support it). My recommendation would be to run a single Cat5 to that desktop if that is all that will ever need network there, or run a cat5 to the router and just disable the firewall, DHCP and DNS services then you get a nice 4 port switch.

 

[gimp]

unless the Belkin has a Bridge mode capability?
not too familiar with Belkins.

 

[Eminence_Front]

they have to be able to bridge.

Most of the time, different vendor models don't bridge together well...


In most cases, you need to check if the router supports bridging, (lan extension), and if it does, in almost all cases it works best when you have two of the same or similar routers.

BTW, The USB 2.0 802.11 a/b/g/n dongles are about $25 now at frys

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I believe that model Belkin supports wireless bridging with stock firmware...I setup a few of those Pre-N models years ago. They put some 1/2 decent features in their routers.

However, you need wireless bridge support on the other end, and I don't recall seeing those features in stock Netgear firmware. The D834G is a combo modem/router, which often have even less features, and usually aren't able to be flashed with 3rd party firmware to introduce those features either.

You're most likely stuck either running ethernet cable, or just picking up a wireless NIC.