Upgrading network to Wireless N. Got a few Qs...

hp7909

hp7909

hp7909

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Getting a new Wireless N Router & just have a few questions:
  • I probably know the answer to this, but will any Wireless G product in the network result in it running only in G mode or would any N devices still communicate with the router in that mode?
  • Does Wireless N improve on range even when communicating with G products?
  • Along with the router might also pick up a Wireless N USB dongle to replace the G one I've had for years. Looking at the 150M ones because cheaper & this is something that will not be used/plugged-in throughout just to give access to a rarely used backup PC & desktops that I fix from time to time. Question is, is it ok to mix 300M & 150M especially performance-wise?
Thanks for your time :)
 
hp7909 said:
Getting a new Wireless N Router & just have a few questions:
  • I probably know the answer to this, but will any Wireless G product in the network result in it running only in G mode or would any N devices still communicate with the router in that mode?
  • Does Wireless N improve on range even when communicating with G products?
  • Along with the router might also pick up a Wireless N USB dongle to replace the G one I've had for years. Looking at the 150M ones because cheaper & this is something that will not be used/plugged-in throughout just to give access to a rarely used backup PC & desktops that I fix from time to time. Question is, is it ok to mix 300M & 150M especially performance-wise?
Thanks for your time :)
Click to expand...
No
Not because of the standard but if the router is more powerful/better antenna's or whatever than that will help
No
 
In the end, went for the D-Link DIR-615 & just found this out...



Interesting & the tests I've done (file transfer) show its communicating in different modes according to what the device supports (the 3 wireless devices are all laptops with different chipsets). I assumed that the laptop with Wireless G would force the router/WLAN to only operate in that mode :confused:
 
If you try transferring a file over the G connection while N is busy, you'll bring N down to less than G speeds.

Try it
 
Ok, just tested it & the Wireless G seems to be affected not the N :confused:

What I did is concurrently transfer 2 different but fairly large files. Now the laptop which supports the newer standard the speed remains the same i.e. Windows Task Manger reports transferring @ 33% of 300Mbps. Meanwhile the laptop with Wireless G, reports only transferring @ 1.3% of the 54Mbps. The files are from my desktop PC which is connected to the router by Ethernet.

But I'm well chuffed with the results. Now to invest in some 802.11n USB dongles & PCI card.
 
The dir-615 is not a bad bit of kit hardware wise but the software lets it down if you decide to take the leap to dd-wrt you should see a pretty good improvement.
 
Well, flashed it with DD-WRT & everything went smoothly & straightforward (the editing of the .BIN file with a HEX editor is what was putting me off).

Seems to be working fine except, WiFi light is not working/blinking :confused:
 
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