Totally wireless or combined wired/wireless network?

Completely noo to all this and looking for advice.

I am currently thinking of setting up a totally wireless home network
centered around the Netgear DG834GT all-in-one modem/router/WAP/switch
to connect 2 PCs, a laptop and wireless printer/scanner.

But if the wireless connectivity should fail, say, in one of the PCs
(e.g a faulty wireless PCI adaptor), then I guess I could slot in a
replacement wired Ethernet card and connect to the modem/router using
cable?

What I'm asking is, if I go totally wireless, would I still have a
fall-back position using cables?

Or maybe it would make more sense to have one of the PCs cabled to the
modem/router right from the start?

Ed

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:20:41 +0100, Ed <ex@directory> mused:

>Completely noo to all this and looking for advice.
>
>I am currently thinking of setting up a totally wireless home network
>centered around the Netgear DG834GT all-in-one modem/router/WAP/switch
>to connect 2 PCs, a laptop and wireless printer/scanner.
>
Sounds a good plan.

>But if the wireless connectivity should fail, say, in one of the PCs
>(e.g a faulty wireless PCI adaptor), then I guess I could slot in a
>replacement wired Ethernet card and connect to the modem/router using
>cable?
>
I may be missing something here but if you have a wireless card fail
then you'd be slotting in a replacement wireless card?

>What I'm asking is, if I go totally wireless, would I still have a
>fall-back position using cables?
>
Yes.

>Or maybe it would make more sense to have one of the PCs cabled to the
>modem/router right from the start?
>
Not particularly. You will need to set the router up initially with a
wired connection, and it might be an idea to be able to get to it to
perform any firmware updates etc... over the wired connection but once
it's set up and running then you can have a totally wireless network.
--
Regards,
Stuart.

On 16/06/07 10:27, Lurch wrote:

<snip>

> On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:20:41 +0100, Ed <ex@directory> mused:
>> But if the wireless connectivity should fail, say, in one of the PCs
>> (e.g a faulty wireless PCI adaptor), then I guess I could slot in a
>> replacement wired Ethernet card and connect to the modem/router using
>> cable?
>>
> I may be missing something here but if you have a wireless card fail
> then you'd be slotting in a replacement wireless card?

</snip>

What I am saying here is: if a wireless card should fail, then as a
temporary measure, could I just slot in a wired Ethernet card (i.e.
non-wireless)and cable it to the modem/router until I go and get a new
replacement wireless PCI ?


<snip>
>> Or maybe it would make more sense to have one of the PCs cabled to the
>> modem/router right from the start?
>>
> Not particularly. You will need to set the router up initially with a
> wired connection, and it might be an idea to be able to get to it to
> perform any firmware updates etc... over the wired connection but once
> it's set up and running then you can have a totally wireless network.
</snip>

OK, that sounds good advice to me. So there is definitely no advantage
say in terms of connection speeds in having one of the PCs wired to the
modem/router. It's just that I thought that Ethernet cable might be
faster and more reliable than radio wave connection. Or maybe in a
small home network I wouldn't notice the difference?

Ed

"Ed" <ex@directory> wrote in message
news:e4Wdnfne9-(E-Mail Removed)...
> On 16/06/07 10:27, Lurch wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:20:41 +0100, Ed <ex@directory> mused:
>>> But if the wireless connectivity should fail, say, in one of the PCs
>>> (e.g a faulty wireless PCI adaptor), then I guess I could slot in a
>>> replacement wired Ethernet card and connect to the modem/router using
>>> cable?
>>>
>> I may be missing something here but if you have a wireless card fail
>> then you'd be slotting in a replacement wireless card?
>
> </snip>
>
> What I am saying here is: if a wireless card should fail, then as a
> temporary measure, could I just slot in a wired Ethernet card (i.e.
> non-wireless)and cable it to the modem/router until I go and get a new
> replacement wireless PCI ?
>
>
> <snip>
>>> Or maybe it would make more sense to have one of the PCs cabled to the
>>> modem/router right from the start?
>>>
>> Not particularly. You will need to set the router up initially with a
>> wired connection, and it might be an idea to be able to get to it to
>> perform any firmware updates etc... over the wired connection but once
>> it's set up and running then you can have a totally wireless network.
> </snip>
>
> OK, that sounds good advice to me. So there is definitely no advantage
> say in terms of connection speeds in having one of the PCs wired to the
> modem/router. It's just that I thought that Ethernet cable might be
> faster and more reliable than radio wave connection. Or maybe in a small
> home network I wouldn't notice the difference?
>
> Ed
>

I'm not an expert but:- Wireless speeds are faster than Broadband, so you
should notice no difference surfing the WWW. When it comes to passing data
from computer to computer on the LAN, you might notice a difference if
transferring large chunks of data as the eternet speed is approx 2 x
wireless on a normal 10x100 home network.

--
Paul Woodsford
Remove NOSPAM to reply.

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:55:50 +0100, Ed <ex@directory> mused:

>On 16/06/07 10:27, Lurch wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:20:41 +0100, Ed <ex@directory> mused:
>>> But if the wireless connectivity should fail, say, in one of the PCs
>>> (e.g a faulty wireless PCI adaptor), then I guess I could slot in a
>>> replacement wired Ethernet card and connect to the modem/router using
>>> cable?
>>>
>> I may be missing something here but if you have a wireless card fail
>> then you'd be slotting in a replacement wireless card?
>
></snip>
>
>What I am saying here is: if a wireless card should fail, then as a
>temporary measure, could I just slot in a wired Ethernet card (i.e.
>non-wireless)and cable it to the modem/router until I go and get a new
>replacement wireless PCI ?
>
Yes, that would work fine.

><snip>
>>> Or maybe it would make more sense to have one of the PCs cabled to the
>>> modem/router right from the start?
>>>
>> Not particularly. You will need to set the router up initially with a
>> wired connection, and it might be an idea to be able to get to it to
>> perform any firmware updates etc... over the wired connection but once
>> it's set up and running then you can have a totally wireless network.
></snip>
>
>OK, that sounds good advice to me. So there is definitely no advantage
>say in terms of connection speeds in having one of the PCs wired to the
>modem/router. It's just that I thought that Ethernet cable might be
>faster and more reliable than radio wave connection. Or maybe in a
>small home network I wouldn't notice the difference?
>
Well, I use a mixture of wired and wireless machines on the network at
home. I have all the desktops (4) wired and the laptops (4) are all
wireless. For casual internetting and the odd bit of copying data to
and from the server is the same on wired or wireless clients. The only
difference you might notice is on transferring huge amounts of data
across the network (like multi GB files), then the wired connection
may be quicker.

In terms of reliability I haven't had any major outages with the
wireless side, not since I got a new card for this laptop anyway. The
others all connect fine with their built in cards that they came with.
--
Regards,
Stuart.