Don't buy wireless bridges

[MalteseMick]

After messing about with two of the crappy things, which cost over 20 quid each I finally came up with a much better solution to go wireless.

Virgin Media give crappy D-Link wireless routers away with their broadband, naturally a lot of people paying for really fast internet want a decent router, so they buy a new one and stick their crappy D-Link on eBay. In the last few days I've seen them selling for as cheap as £7 buy it now, heres a quick link to one I just found which is selling for £10 + P&P h**p://cgi.ebay.co.uk/D-LINK-DIR-615-100-Mbps-WIRELESS-N-ROUTER-/260713433532?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item3cb3bb49bc

Like many others I upgraded my wireless router last week and was about to stick my D-Link on ebay before I thought up the idea of trying to convert it to a wireless bridge. I downloaded some open source Firmware for the device called DD-WRT h**p://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index and flashed the router, I then followed this guide h**p://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge to set the router up to be it's own wireless bridge and wireless repeater, feeding off my main router's wireless.

Now I am the very happy owner of a wireless N bridge which feeds my VU+ Duo in the other room - not only that but I have 4 extra available ethernet ports now for my xbox and media PC. I've also been watching 1080p movies streamed from my NAS drive absolutely perfectly whereas is was all but impossible using the normal wireless bridges.

So yeah basically for around £10 to £13 delivered you can achieve this too at half the price of one of those crappy wireless G bridges :p hope this helps some of you.

[Malcolm-X]

Great post buddy, I've been using a DD-WRT Router (Buffalo WR8) for a long time now and they work a dream with any receiver.

[John]

ive just bought a Vonets bridge, not tested it yet! hope I have some luck with it! :)

[Larry-G]

After messing about with two of the crappy things, which cost over 20 quid each I finally came up with a much better solution to go wireless.

Virgin Media give crappy D-Link wireless routers away with their broadband, naturally a lot of people paying for really fast internet want a decent router, so they buy a new one and stick their crappy D-Link on eBay. In the last few days I've seen them selling for as cheap as £7 buy it now, heres a quick link to one I just found which is selling for £10 + P&P h**p://cgi.ebay.co.uk/D-LINK-DIR-615-100-Mbps-WIRELESS-N-ROUTER-/260713433532?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item3cb3bb49bc

Like many others I upgraded my wireless router last week and was about to stick my D-Link on ebay before I thought up the idea of trying to convert it to a wireless bridge. I downloaded some open source Firmware for the device called DD-WRT h**p://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index and flashed the router, I then followed this guide h**p://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge to set the router up to be it's own wireless bridge and wireless repeater, feeding off my main router's wireless.

Now I am the very happy owner of a wireless N bridge which feeds my VU+ Duo in the other room - not only that but I have 4 extra available ethernet ports now for my xbox and media PC. I've also been watching 1080p movies streamed from my NAS drive absolutely perfectly whereas is was all but impossible using the normal wireless bridges.

So yeah basically for around £10 to £13 delivered you can achieve this too at half the price of one of those crappy wireless G bridges :p hope this helps some of you.

rather than starring out part of the url just wrap it in coded brackets as so

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index

[silverfox0786]

i thought this was info was common knolledge i've heard on this forum b4 about the firmware to convert to bridge

[MalteseMick]

It may be common knowledge, but I've just found it out after spending near 50 quid on the dreambox wireless ethernet bridges myself and I've seen quite a few others posting questions relating to their own wireless ethernet bridges so I thought it would be useful to let people know of, in my opinion, a far superior cheaper way to achieve network connectivity in another room.

[Larry-G]

It may be common knowledge, but I've just found it out after spending near 50 quid on the dreambox wireless ethernet bridges myself and I've seen quite a few others posting questions relating to their own wireless ethernet bridges so I thought it would be useful to let people know of, in my opinion, a far superior cheaper way to achieve network connectivity in another room.

£50 on xbox wifi bridges. i know for a fact that i posted wifi bridges on this site for £20 or there abouts. in fact if you type wifi bridge into google the first response will be for the wifibridge site where it lists uk distributors who sell the Openmedia wifi bridge for £24.99

as for a far more superior way to achieve network connectivity, it's called CAT5 or CAT6 cable.

[MalteseMick]

I bought two different ones because the first one (Openmedia) was crap, something like 20-25 quid each including postage, can't remember. Now I'm getting around 90mbps which is allowing me to stream the 1080p files and despite being a crap router is far superior as a bridge than those Openmedia jobs.

Anyway people just want to argue for the sake of argument? :p If I had an easy way to run ethernet cables the length across my house I wouldn't have invested in wireless. Obviously.

[succuba]

£50 on xbox wifi bridges. i know for a fact that i posted wifi bridges on this site for £20 or there abouts. in fact if you type wifi bridge into google the first response will be for the wifibridge site where it lists uk distributors who sell the Openmedia wifi bridge for £24.99

as for a far more superior way to achieve network connectivity, it's called CAT5 or CAT6 cable.

If you re read the post he said that he tried two bridges at under £25 each and secondly its not always feasible to run lengthy cable runs through one or two story houses that have just been decorated.

@silverfox - not everyone has the knowledge that you possess

Regards

EDIT: sorry MM you beat me to it

[silverfox0786]

@silverfox - not everyone has the knowledge that you possess

Regards

its not knolledge i possess but knolledge i acquired from this here forum
and i wasnt having a dig but rather just pointing out that mick didnt need to waste all that money

[MalteseMick]

I'm gonna try fob off the wireless bridges to a couple of family members (who i'm setting up dm500s for and who would never stream anything) so hopefully no money wasted :)

[tomthebomb1968]

Thanks for the heads up MM. I have quite a non standard setup so this will help me. I have my linux pc server in my garage connected to my router in the house via powerline adapter. I have 5 other Linux sat boxes running in the house, the VU Duo connects via cat5 direct to the router and the other 4 connect via powerlines.

The kids have ps3 and xbox 360 connected to net for on line gaming and when they were playing I was getting complaints of high ecm times so I got a second line installed in the house just for pc, gaming, iphone browsing etc and have my server and dreamboxes connected to the original line. Works well for everything except for the 360 which aint natively wireless so this was still connecting via powerline to the original connection. Was contemplating biting the bullet and getting him the MS wifi dongle but I think I will try this method first and see how that goes.

[MalteseMick]

The Xbox wifi dongle is ridiculously over priced and I refuse out of principle to pay for it, you can buy very decent routers for the price of that adapter. I've got the powerline networking for my second gaff in Guernsey which works brilliantly (i've done this wireless set up in Belfast) and I was seriously considering going down the powerline route again before I figured out that the D-Link could be used as a repeater, my problem with the powerline method is that they are quite expensive and since my other room has 3 ethernet devices I would have needed to buy a switch on top of this (so you are hogging two plug sockets as well, my missus goes nuts at the amount of extension leads I run). I think the powerline method would probably be preferable to me, it's just this method with my redundant router was completely free.

Also when borrowing my mate's Xbox wifi dongle (albeit the G version) I found my ecm times were worse than going through the powerline (make sure you connect your powerline adapter directly to the wall socket, I've found connecting it to an extension lead seems to work well but gives bad packet loss leading to bigger ecm times).

I've only got two linux STBs in the house, with a third and maybe fourth soon to join and I've found the clines from the boxes take almost no bandwidth. With 50mb broadband (with decent 1.5mb up) I've set my router to restrict any one device to a maximum of 500k up at any one time, making sure my bittorrent and xbox etc don't interfere with the television or vice versa. Getting two lines put in would seem a bit OTT to me.

Also the other advantage to setting my D-Link up as a repeater is that it also extends my wireless coverage, which has become useful for my son's little netbook because he was struggling with even the likes of Youtube in his bedroom at the far end of our house before.

[nocarder]

So far i have used these 2 bridges

http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Linksys-WET54G-Wireless-G-Ethernet-Bridge/dp/B00008WMBT
and
http://homestore.cisco.com/en-us/adapters/linksys-WET610N_stcVVproductId65221232VVcatId543809VVviewp rod.htm

and both work fine with any receiver i tried them with.

[tomthebomb1968]

Eventually got round to getiing the DD-WRT firmware flashed to my Netgar WNR200 and can report its working great in wireless repeater mode. My lad has been hammering Xbox live all day on Black Ops and its been flawless. Id luv a 50meg DL and 1.5meg UL but best i can get is an 8meg DL which Has never been above 6.5 and a half meg upload is what I usually get. Up til November I was only getting an average of 300kbs. Second line may have been OTT but nobodys sat tv/online games or video streams are glitching now.;)


http://www.speedtest.net/result/1097696966.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[Likvid]

I use CAT6 network in my house, wireless is useless when it comes to reliability

[Larry-G]

I use CAT6 network in my house, wireless is useless when it comes to reliability

i cant agree more. CAT5 or CAT6 cabling is not only more secure than wifi but more reliable too.

[bigup7]

whats the different between these two D-Link 615?

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8638/12916460041086200672pic.jpg (http://img502.imageshack.us/i/12916460041086200672pic.jpg/)

and

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6181/dir615b2imageside377773.jpg (http://img525.imageshack.us/i/dir615b2imageside377773.jpg/)

?

[Stanman]

Apart from appearance the top one is N draft and may be an earlier model when N was first mooted whereas the 2nd is fully compliant with N standard?
Having said that the first is on the d link website but the 2nd one is not!!

[pooface]

i cant agree more. CAT5 or CAT6 cabling is not only more secure than wifi but more reliable too.

why not cat7? :p

[bigup7]

Apart from appearance the top one is N draft and may be an earlier model when N was first mooted whereas the 2nd is fully compliant with N standard?
Having said that the first is on the d link website but the 2nd one is not!!

2nd one is on dlink site for me but can only find the 1st ones in the support pages


http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=565

[MalteseMick]

If I was getting my house renovated I would go for ethernet cable - indeed when I first bought the house I crawled under my floor and dragged coax cable half way across the house so that I wouldnt have it tacked to walls. Also when I was adding a new conservatory/extension a month or so ago I also did the coax under the floor because I could extend it from the dish outside. Unfortunately my router being the other side of the house I couldn't do the same without pulling up my floor.

I actually do a lot of online gambling and I've developed my own software to do this semi-professionally on the betting exchanges as the events are in play. I've got a 30m ethernet cable in my cupboard and the missus goes bonkers when I have it dragging half way round the house on a Saturday afternoon trying to find a quiet spot away from the kiddies. I am not confortable using wireless when a disconnection can cost me a lot of money - apart from this case I'm content enough with the wireless repeater as it's been surprisingly stable.

[MalteseMick]

whats the different between these two D-Link 615?

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8638/12916460041086200672pic.jpg (http://img502.imageshack.us/i/12916460041086200672pic.jpg/)

and

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6181/dir615b2imageside377773.jpg (http://img525.imageshack.us/i/dir615b2imageside377773.jpg/)

?

When looking into this I pretty much came to the conclusion that they are exactly the same in terms of specification. Just seems like different casings for the same model and there are a couple of different firmware versions on the DD-WRT website so could maybe be slightly different chipsets.

[yngvekl]

The last one is bigger... :)

[u.s]

whats the different between these two D-Link 615?

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8638/12916460041086200672pic.jpg (http://img502.imageshack.us/i/12916460041086200672pic.jpg/)

and

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6181/dir615b2imageside377773.jpg (http://img525.imageshack.us/i/dir615b2imageside377773.jpg/)

?

i think i have the second one, it came in a kit with a usb dongle.

[u.s]

scratch that, i have the DKT-110 which has the DIR-301 router and wireless dongle.
http://www.dlink.co.uk/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1197542875925&ssbinary=true

but good news is that it can be hacked with dd-wrt, so will have a go later tonight, i think an early finish from work due to snow is in order...lol

[u.s]

didn't work on my router :( so i ordered the 615 off ebay. :D
i think the all black 615 (top pic) is issued by Virginmedia and the other one (bottom pic) is the retail version you buy.

[Sicilian]

If anyone wants something straight forward these work ok http://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/Networking-WiFi/Openmedia-WiFi-Bridge as 54G.

[silverfox0786]

If anyone wants something straight forward these work ok http://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/Networking-WiFi/Openmedia-WiFi-Bridge as 54G.

in all honesty i would ust go for what the sponsor is selling far easier to deal with and comes with waranty

[u.s]

i've had two of them die, didn't buy them from sponsor tho, they were blue and unbranded, also seen some branded as Vonets.

[silverfox0786]

unbranded are chinese clones vonets i have seen to be ok and the open media ones are uk made so they will be good and if you by from the sponsor you will be getting some sort of warrenty with it

[MalteseMick]

The blue one and open media one both worked ok for me in terms of clines, just didn't stream video very well at all. And the open media one was an absolute nightmare trying to get programmed a second time for a different router, infact I gave up in the end as when I connected it to the computer to change the settings it just wouldn't connect to the thing.