As some of you may have read in the Touch forum, we live in a house that is a total nightmare when it comes to WiFi. While the house is only about 1600 sq/ft, the WiFi signal from the second floor down to the first floor is pretty weak. The house is a rental so I am unable to run Cat5 cable around the house unless I want it laying on the carpet. You can imagine how popular that would be with the "other half." So, as some have suggested, I am going to try using the powerline adapters. I am going to list the components I have, their location, and what results I am looking to achieve. I am not an expert when it comes to networking so I am looking for some input on how you would setup what I have and what you would buy (within reason). I am not trying to reinvent the wheel with my network but if there is something simple I could do or purchase to achieve what I am looking for, I am all ears.
My setup: We have our DSL modem and Linksys WRT54GL router at the top of our stairs. Basically, the router sits almost dead-center in the middle of the upper level where it is now. In the room right next to the router (the office), we have an Apple Time Capsule using wireless to the linksys router. Hooked up to it is a laser printer that we use with our laptops via the network. We are going to set up a mac mini in the office as our media server until we get something better. The first concern is that the mac mini (or any server for that matter) would not have a hard-wire connection to the router. Our Master Bedroom is also right off the location of the router. We have a receiver, speakers, etc. in the bedroom. This will be location #1 for a SB Touch. Downstairs, we have our living room, which is where our laptops spend most of their time. As I mentioned, the WiFi signal from the router upstairs to the laptops downstairs is mediocre at best. A friend and I have messed with the location of the router to no end and it seems like this is the best it is going to get. Prior to owning this router, we couldn't get a WiFi signal from 25 feet away in a direct line of site with another router. There is obviously some major interference in this house. Also in the living room, we have a home stereo and a Roku Soundbridge hooked up. The 2nd SB Touch will replace the Soundbridge. The soundbridge works about as well as expected with the poor WiFi coverage in our house. For the most part, it plays without interruption. Occasionally it will have to rebuffer or it will cut out until it gets a better signal. We also have a PS3 and a Wii hooked up via wireless and they seem to work fine. We use them very little online so I wouldn't know if they were having problems. So my plan was to purchase powerline adapters to install at the router, in the master bedroom, and downstairs in the living room. Hopefully (fingers crossed) they will work better than the Wifi. The master bedroom probably would work fine with the WiFi but the living room is probably going to need the powerline adapter. So, having the listed components, is there a better way to configure things to better suit my needs. We like having the backup of the time capsule (without starting an argument on how useful the time machine backups are). We also like having the printer attached to the time capsule for network printing. I realize that we could easily go buy a network printer, but I'd rather spend the money on something else. The first thought I had was to relocate the linksys router to the office. This would allow the media server (mac mini for now) to connect via cat5 cable. The potential problem with this is the router gets further away from the center of the house which could potentially make the WiFi signal downstairs even weaker. The next thought I had was to move the time capsule downstairs and plug it into the powerline adapter (assuming the powerline adapter works as planned). I could then use the time capsule to expand my WiFi network and plug the Touch directly into the time capsule. The biggest drawback to this option is I can't exactly put my laser printer on my tv stand so we would lose the print function. The next thought was to use the time capsule upstairs as the primary router and then move the linksys downstairs to expand the WiFi and to plug the Touch into. From everything I've read, I think I would prefer the flexibility of configuring the linksys router as my primary router. I am almost certain the time capsule is very basic in network configuring. The other thought I had was to purchase another WRT54GL and put it downstairs connected to the powerline adapter. This would boost the WiFi signal downstairs and give me something to plug the Touch into. I could then move the upstairs router to the office, thus allowing the media server to connect to the router via cat5. Overall, my goal is to get the Touches playing in the living room and bedroom, and to get the media server going in the office. My secondary goal would be to improve the WiFi signal downstairs. Hopefully I have provided enough information for you guys to make a suggestion. I will be out of the country for about a month so I would like to order whatever I need so that it is waiting for me when I get home. That gives me a few days to order what I need. Thanks for the help. Randy -- rrweather ------------------------------------------------------------------------ rrweather's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=33706 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=70176 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
