Does this sound feasible?

wonder_lander

wonder_lander

wonder_lander

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
5,586
Location
Stone, Staffordshire
Current setup is:

Bedroom
O2 broadband (max connection is 2.6meg)
Using the supplied O2 router connected to a Dreambox DM500

Garage
Windows Home Server - HP ML-115 (Gigabit NIC)
Windows XP PC - (100Mbit NIC)
Gigabit Netgear 4 port switch

Lounge
Netgear WGPS606 Wireless Bridge wirelessly connected to the o2 router.
Hard wire connected to
1 port to the gigabit switch in the garage
1 Xbox 360
1 Tivo

Wireless Items
2 x Toshiba P300-156 laptops (802.11g) - Vista 32bit
1 x iphone 3G
1 x ipod touch
Wii

Problem
I get connections of 48 - 54mbit on the laptops and transfering files from the laptop to the windows home server is painful - 600 - 700 KB/Sec with Windows Task Manger showing network utilization not going above 15% so this is the prime purpose of the upgrade.

Questions:
If I replace the Netgear WGPS606 with D-Link DAP-1522 Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge/Access Point plus wireless n PCMCIA or wireless n USB adapters for the laptops will I see an improvements in file transfer speeds and if so what is realistically acheiveable?

Anything else I should look at changing at the same time? I don't see a point / need to upgrade the router as I am not going to be maxing out that connection.

Also will I get wireless N speeds on the laptop if some legacy devices like the wii and ipod/iphone only have g? Will it throttle my entire wireless network back?
 
wonder_lander said:
Questions:
If I replace the Netgear WGPS606 with D-Link DAP-1522 Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge/Access Point plus wireless n PCMCIA or wireless n USB adapters for the laptops will I see an improvements in file transfer speeds and if so what is realistically acheiveable?
Click to expand...

Probably, though you need to understand that the quoted connection speeds are not full-duplex, i.e. you only ever see half of the rated speed.

54Mbit 11G will under best circumstances perform around 22Mbit/sec each way.

108Mbit rated 11n will also deliver around 50-55mbit/sec under best circumstances.

You can get things that claim up to 300Mbps, this is done by channel bonding, though will generally give half decent results if all the kit is from the same brand and you have a good signal strength.

wonder_lander said:
Also will I get wireless N speeds on the laptop if some legacy devices like the wii and ipod/iphone only have g? Will it throttle my entire wireless network back?
Click to expand...

If you're running a standard singleband radio connecting an older device that does not support 11n will slow the entire network down to that speed.

You could consider getting a new AP and running that with a different SSID for your 11n devices only, leaving the slower devices on the existing wireless.

Or look at a more upmarket AP that supports dualband 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radios and also multiple SSID's though I'm not sure what to recommend for this in the sort of price range you're probably going to be looking at.
 
Thanks Wij, I understand I wouldn't get the full speed on wireless but as you say was at least expecting half the speed and 600/700 KB/Sec is nowhere near :(

Currently the wireless side of the network means that I'm not making the most of my WHS for storage and sharing of my photos and music so that is my primary goal to improve.

The wireless distance between the wireless access point and the laptops is < 2 metres so I have excellent signal.

If I run a new AP with a seperate SSID for the N devices how do I bridge the two and where should I slot it into my configuration? Would I replace the Netgear gigabit swith with the D-Link as above. So I would connect to "My_Wireless_Network_N" from my laptops which would then be wired back to the WGPS606 which would then provide internet access. That sound about right and the best option? Any alternative product to suggest.

Also for the laptops am I best off going for PCMCI or USB wireless N adapters?
 
Just had another look at your network layout, I see where the slowdown is possibly occurring and it's the wireless bridge between the router (which acts as your AP) and the wired network which the WHS is on.

You could perhaps prove this by moving your WHS temporarily to the bedroom and plugging it directly to the router, then see if the file transfer speeds increase.

Also just re-reading your current plans it won't make a blind bit of difference swapping the Netgear for the DLink, you're looking at replacing the wireless bridge with another bridge that will be talking to a router with 11G so it will run at 11G speeds.

To get any benefits you'd need to think about just replacing the router with something with 11n or look at doing what I suggested and adding a dedicated 11n AP on the wired portion of the network that the WHS is connected to.

I also think you'd do well to try and replace the wireless bridge with a wire if you want to just keep using the O2 router as the wifi access point.
 
Home plugs not an option for this one? Might be able to give speed boost between the routers and leave the purely wireless devices with slightly slower speeds ?
 
I've created a network sketch to give you an idea on location and connections

networkdiag.png


Thanks for the feedback guys.

By the sounds of it if I drop a new wireless N AP with a different SSID in place of the Netgear 4 port gigabit switch in the garage I could then tell the laptops to connect to that wireless network. It should still then retain it's internet connection as the wired portion of the network would go back to the WGPS606 which would bridge back to the o2 router. Does that sound about right?
 
If you upgrade the laptop wireless to N as well as the router in the garage to N then yes you can do that. It should help with your transfers assuming the distance/walls are not too much thicker and subsequently degrade the signal that much more.

Power line between the routers and wireless N in the lounge may be another option, albeit more expensive. It would allow faster transfer between all the routers which may be a bit of a bottle neck at the best of times (speculation here)?
 
Firstly he's not using routers in the garrage or the lounge, the pictures are a bit missleading but if you'd read the text you'd see that.

IMO best thing to do would be try and replace the wireless bridge in the lounge with a bit of Cat5, or at a push a powerline link, and then add a wireless N AP somewhere on the network for the laptops to use whilst keeping the router's wireless for the other clients to access at 11g speeds.
 
Cable is really a no go between the router and the wireless bridge in the lounge.

What are the best speeds I could expect from powerline adapters? Would I be better rigging a powerline adapter up in the lounge behind the sofa and another in the garage and connect 1 into the laptop and the other into the gigabit switch. Then I guess I would disable wireless on the laptop?
 
It sounds like the router in the lounge needs to be uprated to a dual band wireless N router and one of the laptops upgraded with a wireless N dongle/pcmia.

That way it can still act as a bridge/lower speed wireless router and still have a higher speed transfer for the laptop for streaming.

What speeds you get I am unsure as I have no experience of this, but it was something I was planning to do in the future. Sadly not many options for wireless N dual band/gigabit/adsl. Luckily this is not an issue for you, so just go out and get a reasonably priced dual band wireless N router/bridge/whatever will dish out the link you need and job done.
 
Nope, that would't get you anywhere because as soon as you get the new bridge wirelessly talking with your router upstairs that dongle will drop back to 11g speeds as it's not dualband.

Which I think I explained in my first post answering your questsions.

I'm not actually even sure that Linksys thing can act as a bridge and an AP at the same time, so that would also be something to check out.

IMO if you can't run a cable to the upstairs router Id look at replacing the wireless bridge with a power line adapter. Or I'd even be looking now as trying to locate the router downstairs (is it in the bedroom as that is where your master BT socket is?) and then using either the existing wireless bridge to connect your dreambox up with or get a power line adapter for it.

After that I'd look at upgrading the router to something with an 11n dualband AP built in (such as the one you linked above, but maybe look for one with a built in ADSL modem).
 
It appears that one I chose in the post above is Dual Band but only single radio so you can choose the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz but I need to use both at once. Will dig some more!
 
wij said:
Nope, that would't get you anywhere because as soon as you get the new bridge wirelessly talking with your router upstairs that dongle will drop back to 11g speeds as it's not dualband.

Which I think I explained in my first post answering your questsions.
Click to expand...

Yup see that now. Although it is dual band it's only 1 selectable at the time and so it's no good for this purpose.

IMO if you can't run a cable to the upstairs router Id look at replacing the wireless bridge with a power line adapter. Or I'd even be looking now as trying to locate the router downstairs (is it in the bedroom as that is where your master BT socket is?) and then using either the existing wireless bridge to connect your dreambox up with or get a power line adapter for it.
Click to expand...

Do I need to find a powerline adapter that will allow 4 LAN connections to it then? If so can you recommend one?


After that I'd look at upgrading the router to something with an 11n dualband AP built in (such as the one you linked above, but maybe look for one with a built in ADSL modem).
Click to expand...

So I would have a Dual Band ADSL router in the bedroom connected to the dreambox and a powerline adapter (can you mix brands as I already have 2 linksys ones)

Then in the lounge another powerline adapter hooking up to the TiVo and Xbox.

Wireless will have to travel from the lounge up to the bedroom to access the Dual Band wireless N ADSL router.

Garage will remain unchanged as it's just connected into the new powerline adapter in the lounge.

That all sound right?
 
If you've already got 2 powerline adapters why dont you just turn off the wireless bridge and use it as a switch and connect one port to the powerline network and use those to link upstairs to downstairs.

I'd then see if that gives you any better file transfers between the WHS and your laptops, as I think that wireless bridge is where you're probably losing a lot of your throughput.
 
Will try the powerline adapters. In previous tests I tried they where actually slower, may be because they are on extension leads due to their location?

Will try linking the router and wireless bridge with them to see how it works out!
 
Extension leads, especially ones with surge protection stuff in them generally doesn't do them any good. Maybe test them direct to the wall just to see if that helps out at all.
 
The apple airport extreme

http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/

May be the best in the middle solution for you. Dual band simultaneous radio, gigabit and able to act as a repeater.

I do not know of anyone who has set one of these up with a wireless bridge and AP on one frequency and then had the other acting as a normal AP on the other. So might be worth hunting around to see if someone may have a nice guide on this?

Otherwise removing the wireless bridge and having the above would make things easier.
 
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