spare desktop pc as repeater

demonikal

demonikal

New Member
I know there are lots of different uses out there for un-needed desktop pc's. I don't know how to do half of them, but I've read about them.

I fixed a guy's two laptops and desktop pc for him and instead of paying me cash for labor, he offered me the slower of the 2 laptops as payment. I get a fairly good wireless signal on the opposite end of the house with this laptop, but not nearly as good as I get with my main desktop pc which is hooked up to the router via cable.

The question: Can I take an un-needed tower and turn it into a wireless repeater? Or is this completely impossible?:confused:
 
tremmor

tremmor

Well-Known Member
Never heard it done. A repeater does not cost that much and cheap.
Not to mention how big it is. (a computer that has to be relocated)
 
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TrainTrackHack

VIP Member
It can be done if you have the right card. You could put Linux on the box and then set up the wireless interface as a repeater, but not all devices/drivers support the repeater mode (mine unfortunately doesn't... I also tried).
 
mrgcat

mrgcat

New Member
demonikal said:
I know there are lots of different uses out there for un-needed desktop pc's. I don't know how to do half of them, but I've read about them.

I fixed a guy's two laptops and desktop pc for him and instead of paying me cash for labor, he offered me the slower of the 2 laptops as payment. I get a fairly good wireless signal on the opposite end of the house with this laptop, but not nearly as good as I get with my main desktop pc which is hooked up to the router via cable.

The question: Can I take an un-needed tower and turn it into a wireless repeater? Or is this completely impossible?:confused:
Click to expand...

I am stabbing in the dark here, but I have done a similar thing with my Xbox. You need to bridge the connections between your ethernet and the wifi. You may need to tweak the settings. If you could give us the model number of your wifi card then we can tell you for sure. What I did with my Xbox is on ethernet.

With a quick google search you could possibly find some cheap boosters if you aren't successful, or a new router.

Another idea is using a cheap router and plugging that into the computer, then bridge the connection between the ethernet output and the ethernet input.

To bridge the connections it depends what OS you are using. In Windows 7 you can do it through the control panel.

Hope this has helped :D
 
demonikal

demonikal

New Member
mrgcat said:
I am stabbing in the dark here, but I have done a similar thing with my Xbox. You need to bridge the connections between your ethernet and the wifi. You may need to tweak the settings. If you could give us the model number of your wifi card then we can tell you for sure. What I did with my Xbox is on ethernet.

With a quick google search you could possibly find some cheap boosters if you aren't successful, or a new router.

Another idea is using a cheap router and plugging that into the computer, then bridge the connection between the ethernet output and the ethernet input.

To bridge the connections it depends what OS you are using. In Windows 7 you can do it through the control panel.

Hope this has helped :D
Click to expand...

Here it is:

Broadcom BCM94318MPG Wireless 802.11b/g mini PCI card

(the laptop has Windows XP Media Center Edition with SP3)
 
S

Speedydowt

New Member
Why would you want a PC repeating a wireless signal?

Repeating is a poor choice for network throughput and security for several reasons:

1) Repeating involves getting the WLAN to analyze frames, try to clean up interference and replicate them out of the same antenna. Doing so means you will only get half the normal throughput of a direct connection to your existing wireless access point given full signal.

2) Security- WDS only supports WPA2 AES encryption on a handful of devices/ firmware revisions, meaning you will most likely have to put up with WEP or worse (but not much) an open wireless network. Not something you really want to do unless its a guest wireless network on its own VLAN with internet access only.

Other reasons:

1) why have a full PC tower sitting in middle of the home or office simply repeating wireless signals- its unsightly, most likely will need to put somewhere unpractical and uses a large amount of power to do very little.



much better option:

Powerline adaptors- place old router with DHCP/ firewall/ NAT disabled and use as an AP


if you need help just ask :)
 
demonikal

demonikal

New Member
Speedydowt said:
Why would you want a PC repeating a wireless signal?

Repeating is a poor choice for network throughput and security for several reasons:

1) Repeating involves getting the WLAN to analyze frames, try to clean up interference and replicate them out of the same antenna. Doing so means you will only get half the normal throughput of a direct connection to your existing wireless access point given full signal.

2) Security- WDS only supports WPA2 AES encryption on a handful of devices/ firmware revisions, meaning you will most likely have to put up with WEP or worse (but not much) an open wireless network. Not something you really want to do unless its a guest wireless network on its own VLAN with internet access only.

Other reasons:

1) why have a full PC tower sitting in middle of the home or office simply repeating wireless signals- its unsightly, most likely will need to put somewhere unpractical and uses a large amount of power to do very little.



much better option:

Powerline adaptors- place old router with DHCP/ firewall/ NAT disabled and use as an AP


if you need help just ask :)
Click to expand...

Simple answer for your question: "I'm a n00b" :)

The thing about my router is it's a gateway too. I don't know if that means much of anything, but it's a 2WIRE gateway for AT&T U-verse. I don't even know if I can re-configure DHCP/firewall/NAT with the 2WIRE gateway/router and if I could, I wouldn't know how to do it.

I'm not attacking what you said, but wouldn't me disabling the firewall on the router make me more susceptible to possible attacks? People don't come at me - no need to since I don't cause trouble and I have the paid version of Avast on my computer, so no worries with a firewall there, but then there's also a family member's laptop, and my Nexus 7 (may not apply here) - and any time I hook up someone else's laptop or computer that I'm trying to fix. Maybe you meant DHCP or firewall or Networked Attached Storage. Or maybe those are all things I would have to disable to make the router a powerline adaptor. So yeah, n00b here in a big way :D
 
S

Speedydowt

New Member
demonikal- mate i'm here to help and not to accuse you of being a "noob" or whatever.

Sorry, I perhaps have confused you more than helped you.

I didn't mean disable your firewall DHCP and NAT on your main router that is used as the default gateway, that will bring down your entire network!

Instead what i meant was- use another router that you have lying around or that a friend doesnt want anymore, disable NAT/ DHCP and the firewall on the second router- give it an ip address in the same subnet as your existing network (ie if your router's DHCP is handing out 192.168.1.0/24 addresses, put your new router's ip as 192.168.1.something (upto 254)
 
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