Newbie N Bridge/AP Help Please!

[dpendleton]

Hi,

I've read a few posts here trying to answer my own question, but am not sure and would appreciate your help.

I have FIOS with the actiontec router (with the wireless turned on), that is connected to a Gigabit switch, from that switch ethernet runs to a couple of locations, one upstairs, one in a basement, with Gigabit switches and PCs/NAS hung off them. There is one room with a PC (with wireless N card) that for various reasons I can't get cable to, but want to be able to stream HD content from my NAS to. What (I think) I want to do, it to place a Wireless N device connected to my switch upstairs and then have the PC connect to that.

Would this work? What Wireless N product would I need/would you recommend? Could I leave the wireless on the Actiontec switched on?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[scotty]

I'm assuming your existing wireless router isn't wireless N?

You 'could' do what you mention (PC-to-PC ad-hoc), but the less complicated setup would be to get a wireless N router or access point and simply plug it in upstairs to your switch (if you get a router, you have to disable DHCP and give it a different address than your existing router). This will give you a wireless N access point to which your computer can connect.

Besides, SNB has well proven it's better to add, not replace when switching to N, so adding an N access point might not be a bad idea. Less complicated than trying to do PC-to-PC wireless.

 

[dpendleton]

Thanks for the advice. My existing router isn't wireless N, So adding a Wireless N Router or Access Point to the switch upstairs sounds like the way to go, any recommendations?

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

What is the distance between where you will add the AP and the PC that it will connect to?
What is the N card in the PC?
For HD, I would really recommend Ethernet if you can at all do it.

 

[dpendleton]

The access point and the PC will be about 30ft apart with a couple of interior walls between. I'm not sure what the N card in the PC is. I'll certainly take another look at running ethernet... I might have to get creative! Thanks for the advice.

 

[thiggins]

If you have a dual-band card, I would advise running in the 5 GHz band if you are going to try for wireless. I found that the NETGEAR WNHDE111 produced good results, when I used a pair of them.
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