Hooking Docking Station up to WiFi router

Hello all,

I just got cable internet access and am setting up my system. I have a
cable modem going to a D-link wifi router. What I would like to do is
hard-wire my laptop's docking station to the router, so that when
docked the computer is able to take advantage of the full speed of the
cable connection. But I would also like to have a PC wifi card in the
laptop so that when I undock I can access the internet wirelessly.

Will this work? I was thinking there may be some internal conflict if,
for example, I try to access the internet while docked and the computer
doesn't "know" what method (hard wire or wifi) I would like to use. Do
I have to pull out the PC card every time I dock?

Thanks for any help

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Will this work? I was thinking there may be some internal conflict if,
> for example, I try to access the internet while docked and the computer
> doesn't "know" what method (hard wire or wifi) I would like to use. Do
> I have to pull out the PC card every time I dock?

There won't be a conflict. You might not control which access is used, but
it should work.

Some laptops have different hardware configurations available in the device
manager for docked verses non-docked.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308577

I manually disable my WiFi card when I'm not using it.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

> Will this work? I was thinking there may be some internal conflict if,
> for example, I try to access the internet while docked and the computer
> doesn't "know" what method (hard wire or wifi) I would like to use. Do
> I have to pull out the PC card every time I dock?

It'll work fine, the PC should assign a higher routing metric for the
wireless card so the LAN route will be the chosen one.

When the LAN route becomes unavailable, the wifi route will take over.

I have had a problem when also running VMWare that the wifi card route
metric got set lower but it's a trivial thing in the properties of the
card to manually set a high metric to solve the problem.

David.

On 3 Oct 2005 09:30:59 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>I just got cable internet access and am setting up my system. I have a
>cable modem going to a D-link wifi router. What I would like to do is
>hard-wire my laptop's docking station to the router, so that when
>docked the computer is able to take advantage of the full speed of the
>cable connection. But I would also like to have a PC wifi card in the
>laptop so that when I undock I can access the internet wirelessly.
>
>Will this work? I was thinking there may be some internal conflict if,
>for example, I try to access the internet while docked and the computer
>doesn't "know" what method (hard wire or wifi) I would like to use. Do
>I have to pull out the PC card every time I dock?
>
>Thanks for any help

Thanks for not supplying any specific model numbers or operating
systems. So, you get a generalized answers.

Most laptops have wireless on/off switches or function keys. Use
them.

If your mystery wi-fi card has a driver that shows up in the system
tray, then it will also have a right clikc to disable feature. The
problem is that if you disable it, the icon may also disappear from
the system tray.

Planting your mystery laptop into your docking station should create
two different Windoze "profiles" as the hardware configuration is
quite different in docked and non-docked. Specify that the wireless
card is disabled or not present in the docked profile and it will
switch to ethernet.

Toshiba laptops have a utility included that "autoswitches" the
various LAN connections. Although you can live without it for just
wireless and ethernet, throwing in USB networking and Bluetooth made
it useful.

I suggest you read your docking station manual on how to setup
profiles.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/225810/
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=141600

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 10:19:05 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I suggest you read your docking station manual on how to setup
>profiles.
>
>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/225810/
>http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=141600

Oops. Those were for W98/ME and W2K. For XP, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308577

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

I didn't provide a model or OS because I am not sure what notebook I
will use yet. I am pretty sure it will be a Gateway or an IBM Thinkpad
600 series. OS is Win 2k.


Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 10:19:05 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> >I suggest you read your docking station manual on how to setup
> >profiles.
> >
> >http://support.microsoft.com/kb/225810/
> >http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=141600
>
> Oops. Those were for W98/ME and W2K. For XP, see:
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308577
>
> --
> Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
> 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
> Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558