New to Wireless routers, advice please

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Ive just ordered a speedtouch 580 wireless router for a very good price, Ive always used wired modems so i have a few questions:

Can i use both the routers firewall and my software firewall at the same time ? Or do i turn off the routers firewall?

How do i ensure a 'secure' as possible connection ?

any more tips would be good. (ive read the sticky)

Thanks
 
I would personally stick to a wired connection with your router if possible (RJ45). If you are using wireless you'll need to enable security (WEP or WPA) to ensure your neighbours arn't using your connection or sharing your network resources.

You can keep both the hardware and software firewall on, however I'm not the biggest fan of my routers firewall, so what I do on my main computer (torrents, games, etc) is disable the hardware fireware (DMZ) and keep with Windows Firewall and any additional computers I just leave both on, since they only surf the web and email. I do this so if I need to port forward on my main computer I can do so effectlessly.

But the move from a modem to a router is a good move and I hope all works out for you.
 
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Thanks for the reply Tony.

I will use a wired connection from the router to my PC, ive read that an ethernet cable is better than USB Cable, is this correct ?

I will use the wireless facility of the router for my Nintendo DS,

Am i right in thinking the longer the wep key the more secure the wireless network is ?

thanks
 
WPA is the better choice, it's more secure and efficient but your DS does not support WPA so if you wanted to go online with it WEP is the only option at this time.

Wireless is really good :) I have a WRT54G on cable but just ordered a WAG200G for the Sky 16mb that's due soon, Linksys F T W! xD
 
JonnyV said:
Thanks for the reply Tony.

I will use a wired connection from the router to my PC, ive read that an ethernet cable is better than USB Cable, is this correct ?

I will use the wireless facility of the router for my Nintendo DS,

Am i right in thinking the longer the wep key the more secure the wireless network is ?

thanks

yes

RH45 networked is by far the best way to connect up your PCs. Id only suggest wireless on kit where the wire would be a problem, like laptops. For a PC that sits under a desk all the time wireless isnt really necessary and the performance hit you get with it just isnt worth it.

If i connect my PC up through wirless, i get about 60ms ping. Through wired i get about 15ms. Also the download rate suffers too ive found, on all but the best wireless adaptors.

usb is even worse still, as it consumes system resources using USB, and the USB bus will never be as quick as the network card.
 
MrLOL said:
the performance hit you get with it just isnt worth it.


This is absolutely incorrect information indeed.

People get cack wireless performance for all sorts of whiskey tango foxtrot reasons and the most common is rubbish wireless hardware to begin with, I certainly had this problem the first time I moved to wireless with Belkin and most people at that point would have dismissed wireless as rubbish but I knew it was impossible to be this bad and returned the whole Belkin setup and got the Linksys (WRT54G v2 + WMP54G) and have never had a single issue.

The Only issue most people will have if they have configured their wifi correctly and set a good channel that is not being interferred with is LAN transfer speed and even then it's only about half that of a wired LAN connection.

Internet download speeds are not affected and nor are game pings, I still get < 30ms ping in fast paced games like CSS and BF2142 and always get my full download speed online as do all other wireless users connected to the network at home (a laptop using a broadcom 54g card, a pda, a PSP when my bro is home and his shuttle PC using a wmp54g card too)


It's all down to the equipment you buy and how you configure it at the end of the day.


To prove my point I can do any online test you wish, I will do the same test from the pc wired to the router downstairs and also on my pc with a wireless connection upstairs, the difference will be so small it's not even worth the hassle of drilling holes in walls and floors to route wires over.
 
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i must admit i've only ever used the onboard wireless adapators

be it on my Asus mobo or the built in with my centrino laptop

guess you just have to factor in that an onboard network card is up ot the job, whereas onboard wirless adaptors are not, so have to factor in the cost of being the adaptor.. whereas you dont with wired.
 
My old mobo had an onboard network card which I used for works LAN party a while back, this was my old mobo btw and one of my workmates was downloading a video of my machine and my ingame fps literally dropped from an average of 50~ to around 15 where the onboard nic was using the CPU so much! I now have a nforce4 mobo though that has dual gigabit cards onboard of which both have their own chips so no cpu power is drawn but it's all down to the hardware again :p some mobos can cut it others cannot just like wifi adapters :)


Your Asus mobo has either a marvel or nvidia nic built in by the sounds of it which is driven by the nvidia/marvel chip so there would be no downsides!
 
realtek ones do often draw cpu power

notice cpu usage go up when you connect from a lan pc and begin transferring a large file. My old mobo had a realtek card (abit kr7)
 
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