SJ Nerd Squad Question — Cable Internet

Sounds like he has no router there, just the computer going straight into one modem.

 

Re: SJ Nerd Squad Question — Cable Internet

 

DOH! Thanks for the correction, I make boo-boo.
Inky, would you mind drilling into the floor or something like that?

 

Depending on how far you are from the modem, wireless may not be all that much slower than wired.

If you're running CAT-5 or CAT-6 wire 30 feet, aren't you gonna lose some performance with that wired connection?

 

Doubt it. I have a hard-wired computer in a sitting room of my upstairs bedroom wired through a connection in the basement up to the wireless router in the living room, then it goes to the upstairs room after being split off in the attic, so I'd say it's a minimum 50-foot run.. It's a year-old house that was pre-wired by Guardian, so I imagine it was CAT-6 installed.

 

Wow, didn't expect all this after I logged off yesterday.

No, there will be not be any drilling through the 50+ year-old hardwood floors in the house.

I'm thinking of moving the wireless router out of the home office and into the den because A) the den is where I usually wind up using my laptop via Wi-Fi and B) our office desk is a mess of cords and cables and I'm trying to simplify some of it in a fall cleaning project.

 

I couldn't live without Wi-Fi.

 

Putting a wireless card in your desktop, vs. a new modem in the office, would:
-- Allow you to eliminate clutter from the desk area.
-- Still access the Internet from the desktop.
-- Cost only $50, possibly even less.
-- Easy to install; even if you don't want to open up your computer, you can buy wireless adapters that plug into a USB port (you sacrifice speed in doing this, though).

 

You know, I didn't even think about that. I've got a Mac G5 at home, which I think has wireless built in.

 

I guess I'm confused with what you're trying to accomplish, Inky.

Two computers can share the same wireless connection, if that's what you're worried about. If you're trying to download on both, there will be the expected slowdown (since you're sharing the bandwidth between two computers).

 

I have wireless at the place I moved into in April. I bought one of the wireless things that plugs into my USB port, but have had no problem with speed (except in opening up PMs here. That tends to take 6-7 seconds for the PM page to open). My roommate, whose room is upstairs, also uses the connection. Even when we're both online and I'm downloading music, I've noticed no change.

am I just super lucky?

 

A lot goes into it, depending on whether you have cable Internet (and how many people in the area are sharing the same "line"), DSL (where you get your own dedicated line), etc.