# Dell Lap Top and 2Wire **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 13, 2007, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687 "2007-07-13T18:31:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ChicanoRojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@ChicanoRojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicanoRojo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/1 "2007-07-13T18:31:05Z")
OK. A total ignorant question about networks ☹ (sorry!)… I have a Dell Lap Top with WiFi catcher. I only have a 2Wire’s Home Portal 1000SW, i.e., a regular DSL router that is **not** wireless. The obvious eggnorant question is…can I connect my laptop to this type of router in order to access the internet? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/2 "2007-07-13T20:28:52Z")
[QUOTE=ChicanoRojo] OK. A total ignorant question about networks ☹ (sorry!).. I have a Dell Lap Top with WiFi catcher. I only have a 2Wire’s Home Portal 1000SW, i.e., a regular DSL router that is **not** wireless. The obvious eggnorant question is…can I connect my laptop to this type of router in order to access the internet? 😕 [/QUOTE] I’m assuming the router has an ethernet port, which would allow you to connect your PC to it using an ethernet cable (as long as your PC has an ethernet card, which is pretty standard). If you need help with setting this up, then that shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question, though…? LilShieste ---
**Author:** ![ChicanoRojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@ChicanoRojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicanoRojo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/3 "2007-07-13T20:35:47Z")
[QUOTE=LilShieste] I’m assuming the router has an ethernet port, which would allow you to connect your PC to it using an ethernet cable (as long as your PC has an ethernet card, which is pretty standard). If you need help with setting this up, then that shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question, though…? [/QUOTE] Sort of. I want to connect **w/o** a wire even though my particular routers is **not** wireless. …and the reason I ask this is because it seems I interpret some sites I have googled that you can do this with a laptop that has wifi. But. Then. I may be reading wrong. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/4 "2007-07-13T20:37:47Z")
If it’s anything like the other 2Wire products I’ve used, it uses HomePNA, which, aside from being shitty, will technically allow you to sometimes access something that resembles the internet. But slowly. There’s a phoneline-USB converter that you should be able to find somewhere. On preview, is it already hooked up to another computer? If not, just run an ethernet cable from the router to computer. Viola! (You can have it because I can’t play it.) ---
**Author:** ![ChicanoRojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@ChicanoRojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicanoRojo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/5 "2007-07-13T20:42:37Z")
[QUOTE=chaoticbear] If it’s anything like the other 2Wire products I’ve used, it uses HomePNA, which, aside from being shitty, will technically allow you to sometimes access something that resembles the internet. But slowly. There’s a phoneline-USB converter that you should be able to find somewhere. On preview, is it already hooked up to another computer? If not, just run an ethernet cable from the router to computer. Viola! (You can have it because I can’t play it.) [/QUOTE] Yeah. I have one PC connected via wire to the router. But now I want to connect to the aforementioned router w/o a wire to my laptop. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/6 "2007-07-13T20:49:33Z")
[QUOTE=ChicanoRojo] Sort of. I want to connect **w/o** a wire even though my particular routers is **not** wireless. …and the reason I ask this is because it seems I interpret some sites I have googled that you can do this with a laptop that has wifi. But. Then. I may be reading wrong. [/QUOTE] If your neighbor is broadcasting an unsecured signal, then you can pick it up with your WiFi. A nonwireless router does not broadcast anything. You cannot connect your laptop to _your_ home network without a wireless router to wirelessly transmit the signal to your computer. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/7 "2007-07-13T20:51:34Z")
[QUOTE=ChicanoRojo] Yeah. I have one PC connected via wire to the router. But now I want to connect to the aforementioned router w/o a wire to my laptop. [/QUOTE] If you plugged in another laptop with a wifi card, then you could use that to broadcast the signal wirelessly to the other laptop. But if the hardwire is going to a PC that (most likely) doesn’t have wifi, then it’s not going to work for you. ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/8 "2007-07-13T20:52:04Z")
[QUOTE=ChicanoRojo] Sort of. I want to connect **w/o** a wire even though my particular routers is **not** wireless. [/quote] If you don’t want to connect the computer directly to the router, then one option would be to purchase a wireless access point. In a nutshell, the access point would connect to the router (via a cable), and would then handle bridging the gap between your computer (and others with wireless enabled) and the router. on preview… > [@ChicanoRojo](#): > > Yeah. I have one PC connected via wire to the router. But now I want to connect to the aforementioned router w/o a wire to my laptop. Ohh ok. In this case, you are basically going to have several computers (e.g., your laptop) sharing the internet connection of the computer connected to the router. If you have Windows XP, this will require configuring the host computer (the one connected to the router) to use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). Here’s a [Microsoft article](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/crawford_02july01.mspx) with some instructions on how to accomplish this. Let us know if this helps. LilShieste ---
**Author:** ![ChicanoRojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@ChicanoRojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicanoRojo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dell-lap-top-and-2wire/411687/9 "2007-07-13T21:13:09Z")
Thank you everybody for your input! 🙂