Do any of you know the answer to the following?
I want to attach a network switch at a location remote from my wireless router. Would a wireless adapter plugged into a switch work, or no?
Update: I didn’t give nearly enough info initially, so here’s what I have:. In one end of the house is my internet connection, going through a Linksys wireless router. I have the router attached to a set of Netgear powerline ethernet adapters, as the wireless signal on the other end of the house is very very low.
I tried putting a linksys 5port switch on the Remote Netgear adapter, and nothing will connect through it, though the hardware will connect when plugged directly into the netgear wireline adapter. I have about 4 things in that room I want to attach to the network, by the way.
I threw out the wireless adapter thing as a SWAG, but wonder if I need to attach a router to the netgear wireline adapter (instead of the switch) to make that work?
Update2: The Denoument of Stupid. My original setup works. Switch ok attached to the Netgear adapter. Apologies to all, thanks for the suggestions.
It depends on what you mean by “switch”…. If you mean a smartswitch which is really a hub with brains, then probably. I’m assuming you have high speed internet via cable or DSL. If so, you have a small router attached to that, right? And a wireless router/switch connected to that? What are you trying to do? If you’d rather email, I’ll be glad to see if I can help.
BTW, there are switch/wireless router combos……
I’m trying to understand exactly what you’re trying to do. So, here is my assumption: you have your internet access from your service provider in room A which has a switch. Room B is remote from Room A, and Room B is where you wish to place your wireless router. You intend to run a wire from the switch in room A to the wireless router in room B where the wireless router will then route without wires.
Yes, this should work perfectly. On the wireless router, do not turn on DHCP for the switch part. Having it have DHCP for the wireless part might simplify your setup, depending on how TCP/IP educated you are.
SSG J
Router in, say, family room, and you have wired devices in, say, study, that you want to link to the wireless network?
No. Won’t work with a wireless adapter like you’d use with another PC (although, actually, there is a way to do that, too, come to think of it). What you need is a second wireless router that has either a bridge mode(where you put in the SSID and encryption key of the router you wish to connect it to) or WDS (where you put in the MAC address on both ends), and then connect the wired “mini-network” to the new device, and devices from both networks are now visible to each other.
It’s surprisingly easy; I *highly* recommend making the bridge the same brand as your access point, so there’s one point of support contact.
Contact me offline with your brand/model of router, and I’ll make some suggestions.
E
It’s your favorite computer science teacher. I think you want a wireless access point. See http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wireless/ss/wirelessgear_2.htm
I’d start a Fry’s since they have easy returns.
Doc, just saw your update. Not stupid… My philosophy is the person who perseveres the longest is the smartest. That makes you smartest. ;) Glad you got it going.
I realize you’ve already got this working, but I recall thinking this was all rather daunting when I set mine up.
You basically have a simple setup of:
modem (for your DSL) >>>> router (with one or more wired + wireless connectivity)
Everyone wants this to work “out of the box” and sometimes it does. Generally, you want your modem on and connected before you turn on your router, then your PC gets involved.
Even if it does work on its own, it’s good to learn about various settings that you can change to optimize your setup and perhaps make it more secure. For one thing, you can only allow certain MAC addresses for your wireless to reduce the possibility of someone poaching your connection.
You can also have a particular computer end up with a particular address, like 192.168.0.100 in case you use SSH to transfer info from one PC to another.
How I use this at home is that, first of all, I have asked my ISP to assign a static address to my home connection, then I can connect remotely from the office, from wherever, to use in whatever way suits me — it’s actually the quickest, most convenient way to transfer info from one PC to another. Be aware of security issues and how to keep out crackers.