OK, I have in my possession a laptop with wireless capabilities. I also have a desktop and a PCI wireless card for it. I would like to set up a wireless home network but doing not want to buy a wireless router. Can I install the wireless PCI adapter card in the desktop and use that as my WAP? What do I need to set up in order for that to work?
I know one of the drawbacks is that the desktop will have to be on in order for me to surf with the laptop but will there be any other cons? Will the bandwidth be reduced from the laptop’s POV?
Thanks in advance guys.
Ha ha, read documentation. That’s priceless. Next thing you know you’ll have me reading assembly instructions!
Just kidding, now that I know it is possible I’ll start tinkering. I just didn’t want to crack open the ole’ PC and frustrate myself if there was no way in heck to make it work. Thanks.
Uh, sorry. I wasn’t being snarky either. I really do appreciate your help. I meant it as a joke since, you know, most people, especially guys, try to do things without reading the instructions first, like me.
By the way, I got the two computers to talk to each other but the laptop can not access the internet. Do I need to set up the desktop as some kind of proxy server or something?
The desktop has to be set up to be a router. I’ve done that with older versions of MS Windows (using a registration patch) so newer versions should be able to do it without too much trouble. I just have had no reason to do it in several years, and ergo, don’t know the details for XP. But it should definitely be doable.
Things to know: you would need a sep. subnet for the laptop-desktop link. The desktop would have two IP addresses, the one to the Internet and the one to the wireless card. The notebook would have the latter IP address listed as a gateway host. XP Pro should also be able to provide DHCP for the wireless side which might make things simpler.
It all might be packaged under an “Internet Connection Sharing” service.
Sweet, got it to work. It was as simple as installing the wireless PCI adapter, creating an ad-hoc connection between the desktop and laptop and enabling the internet sharing feature on the local area connection. Thanks guys. I really appreciate all the help. Happy Thanksgiving!
I’ve been helping some people set up a wireless network, and they’ve had a lot of trouble using an ad hoc network. You might find it hard to connect again if you turn both computers off.
There’s a more objective drawback to ad hoc networks, too: WPA encryption doesn’t work in ad hoc mode, only in infrastructure mode. The best you can do in ad hoc mode is WEP encryption, which is just barely better than nothing these days.