I’ve got a device that needs a plain wired ethernet connection that I want to use via WiFi. This appears to be exactly what WiFi “bridges” are made for. Trouble is, they’re surprisingly expensive, especially compared to the seemingly always on sale access points, and tough to find in the combination of doing both 802.11g and WPA.
Is there any reason I can’t just pick up another access point and run it “backwards” at the device needing a wired connection?
And what’s the difference between a WiFi bridge and a “game adapter” - they seem to do roughly the same thing.
Go buy the “gaming adapter” – it’s $70 cheaper and it does the same job.
The only problem I really had was that I wasn’t patient enough for the thing to equilibrate and I lost an hour or so trying to see why my machine couldn’t see the adapter.
Which one did you get? The buyer reviews I’m seeing at Amazon for game adapters that run at 802.11g speed and use WPA encryption are not at all encouraging.
The reviews for ethernet bridges are also pretty crummy. One user wound up returning the thing after wasting three weeks futzing around with it and digging a trench to bury a cable. Another that stood out: “This is a nightmare with lights” :eek:
Based on these reviews, I’m about to duct-tape cables to the carpet and hope nobody trips on them. Pretty much the only other alternate routes are out the window and over the roof to the other side of the building, or drill holes in the floor and run through the parking garage. :mad:
I bought a Linksys Router/WAP, a WRT54G. There is third-part firmware called “Satori” that you can flash onto it and run it as a bridge. It works great for me.
Here is a site that tells you more than you’d ever want to know about “other” uses for those routers.
I believe the original Linksys code was GPL based, so they really have no choice about allowing users to modify and publish it.
I bought the Linksys WGA54G 802.11g gaming adapter.
I considered it a done deal when I was able to connect to my corporate VPN on my laptop from the other end of the house.
I had to go this route because the Linksys WiFi PC card does not work if you have another network adapter in the machine (which I cannot remove and don’t want to disable since it’s a company laptop).
Buy one at a place that allows returns without restocking fee so you can try it out.
So this will make a WRT54G work as a bridge with WPA (not WEP)?
Otherwise, I did find their WAP54G access point, which can also run as a bridge without any third-party firmware, but only with WEP. :smack: There is also hacked firmware for the WAP54G, but no mention’s made of WPA.
(really an IMHO question, but related to this topic) - Why is WPA support so scarce when WEP is so easy to crack? WEP is worse leaving the key under your doormat - it puts an arrow on the door pointing at the doormat. Considering how many people leave their SSID as “linksys” and the password as “admin” I suppose it’s better than nothing.