Home Wi Fi

[Jim Becker]

Cliff, I have to use multiple access points in our home due to its construction...signals don't pass well between the 250 year old stone portion and other areas. In fact, there's something in the original exterior wall between the 1950s era construction and the 1980s era construction that mitigates signals, too. You may very well have to take a multiple AP (access point) approach in your home, too. Do make sure that if you do, that each AP is set to a different channel that is about 3 frequencies removed from the others. If you still have interference, it could be a neighbor's AP on the same or adjacent channel to your AP(s).

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Really? I've been in the industry for 20 years and have never seen a tool like that. That is cool and more than a little terrifying.

Glad I run Linux.

Oh yah baby. You can get cheesy ones for free on the internet-S and others that you may pay up to a hundred bucks for, and then there are others that cost a lot more like what the FBI uses to crack encrypted hard disks where they hope to find evidence of crimes. To find the better ones you gotta scroll past the thousands of Google returns for the children's toys with silly names like BIG JOHN and X-KRAK.

[Don Alexander]

if you connect to the internet you are vulnerable whether its wireless or wired

just like your house is vulnerable to being broken into and your car

add anything else to the list that comes to mind

security in any area is primarily designed to make hacking/breaking and entering as inconvenient as possible for the scum who do such stuff there are enough people out there who are blissfully ignorant/naive
about their risk that less than easy targets aren't so attractive


the truly determined riffraff can get into anything they really really want to get into computer , house or car

[Leo Graywacz]

I have a Netopia Router and I can go three houses up and still get a very usable signal. It is a commercial router.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Well running cable is out.
The PS3 Slim has not got any physical ports for such a hook up.
So I'm definitely into the Wi Fi

I wonder if there is some firewall software that lets me lock a user out if they enter the wrong password more than X times. That's gotta be the most cost efficient way to nix the brute force password hackers


Jim Becker Said:

You may very well have to take a multiple AP (access point) approach in your home, too. Do make sure that if you do, that each AP is set to a different channel that is about 3 frequencies removed from the others. If you still have interference, it could be a neighbor's AP on the same or adjacent channel to your AP(s).

AP ~ ~ huh? You mean to use repeater bridges? I bet they are not called repeaters ( a term from Ham Radio) even thought that's what they are.
What does one call these things when searching for them?

What do you mean by AP's set to different frequencies?
Does the router needs to be able to broadcast across how many bands? The most I've seen for domestic use is Dual.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I have a Netopia Router and I can go three houses up and still get a very usable signal. It is a commercial router.

Motorola huh? They used to be the Gold Standard in electronics.
Just checked the web site: They have like 5 different ones. Which is yours?

Here I read that some Routers work and play better than others on certain network ISP providers
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r222...er-Differences
I lack the technical basis to inform me whether posts like that are on the mark or all hooey or what.

[Matt Meiser]

AP=access point. Simplifying greatly, its the same thing as a router, but without the piece that routes traffic from your ISP to your wireless network. You can use most any router as an access point by not using the WAN port and using one of the LAN ports instead to connect it to a wired network. Which you said you don't want to do.

From the description of your house and the fact you don't know much about it, I wonder if it wouldn't be worth your time to have a reputable (i.e. not Best Buy) company come in, do a survey for you and recommend an approach? I'd think a small business computer consultant could do this for you.

[Warren Johnson]

Wireless is great when it works. The construction of the buildings has a lot to do with that.

I had to "hard wire" a house because the wireless just would not connect. You could look out the window of the house to the rear converted gargae which housed 2 offices. The only way to get it to stay connected was to hold the AP's at the windows. Installed 180 feet of outdoor rated Cat. 5e and no problems in the past 2 years.

Another example was a large house (think 3 floors and 4 or 5 bedrooms) one of those McMansions. The bedrooms on 2nd floor kept dropping off the LAN. (router was on 1st floor).

Hardwired the house and the longest cable was about 80 feet (well below distance limits), no problems after the install.

[Rob Steffeck]

Well running cable is out.
The PS3 Slim has not got any physical ports for such a hook up.

Are you sure about that? I'd be willing to be that is not the case (although I'm not a good gambler). I have an older PS3 and it has 100mbps ethernet. The newer PS3s have gigabit ethernet. Even the latest model specs show gigabit ethernet so there is most certainly a port.

I use my PS3 as my Blu-ray player and it is also what receives streamed HD video / music from my server running "PS3 Media Server". I had tried setting up wireless using two Linksys WRT160N routers flashed with DD-WRT. One router was hardwired to the PS3 and implemented as a wireless bridge. These were 2.4ghz routers, which was a mistake. Wireless N, in 2.4ghz band, can be very problematic. (see http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php..._Configuration for a good explanation). Needless to say, it didn't work well. I could stream video in 720p fairly well, but occassionally it would get jumpy or I'd loose connectivity altogether. I tweaked settings for weeks, but could not get consistent performance streaming / transcoding HD video.

Due to these things, I hardwired my PS3 and have had no problems. Maybe you'll have better luck with Wireless N at 5ghz, but expect to get intimate with your routers.

[Leo Graywacz]

Motorola huh? They used to be the Gold Standard in electronics.
Just checked the web site: They have like 5 different ones. Which is yours?

Here I read that some Routers work and play better than others on certain network ISP providers
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r222...er-Differences
I lack the technical basis to inform me whether posts like that are on the mark or all hooey or what.

Not at home right now so I haven't a clue. All I remember is it was one of their Enterprise models.

If I remember when I get home I'll post the model number.

[Leo Graywacz]

OK, here ya go, I'm home and I remembered.

'3387 WG-ENT' is the model number of the Netopia wireless router I use.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Are you sure about that?

Well, when I look at the back side panel there is nothing to plug any telecom type lines into. The PS3 Slim is a lot smaller than the old PS

My internet runs at 1.5 to 1.6 mpbs which is not real speedy. That's likely to be my main limiting factor with streaming.

[Rob Steffeck]

Well, when I look at the back side panel there is nothing to plug any telecom type lines into. The PS3 Slim is a lot smaller than the old PS

My internet runs at 1.5 to 1.6 mpbs which is not real speedy. That's likely to be my main limiting factor with streaming.

Every spec sheet, article, review that I can find on the PS3 slim indicates there's an ethernet port (near the optical and HDMI outputs, labelled 'LAN'). Here's one with pictures:

http://www.destructoid.com/hands-on-...m-145005.phtml (search for the word 'ethernet' on that page and you'll see the PS3 Slim ethernet port pic above)

I didn't realize you were streaming from the internet. I have 30mbps internet and even with that, I download media to my server and then stream them to my PS3. I can easily stream 1080p that way.

It would be difficult for you to stream any decent quality HD at speeds of 1.5mbps. For example, I believe that Netflix is streaming 720p right now and they require ~5mbps. But you're right, your internet speed is your limiting factor and any equipment you'd buy these days would easily be able to handle it....wired or wireless.

[Bryan Morgan]

From the description of your house and the fact you don't know much about it, I wonder if it wouldn't be worth your time to have a reputable (i.e. not Best Buy) company come in, do a survey for you and recommend an approach? I'd think a small business computer consultant could do this for you.

You can do your own survey. If you have an Android phone there are a few nifty apps to scan wi-fi.

[Matt Meiser]

You can definitely do all this on your own if you have the skills. The OP has indicated he doesn't and has a rather challenging environment for wireless.