Wireless Router vs Wireless Card.
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I currently use a Linksys e4200 for all my wifi traffic. I kind of want to replace it just with a wifi card since it's pretty much acting as one anyway, I use none of it's features. (I use the media/ftp servers, but they can be replaced)
Only thing is I'm a bit worried about speeds and coverage. I'm assuming these kinds of cards are made for connecting to wifi networks, and not providing them. Can they handle multiple hosts?
For a 2 floor home using 2 Laptops with heavy use and a few smart phones with moderate use, would it be possible to replace the e4200 with just a pci wireless-n card with an external antenna?
I was hoping to just grab something like this http://www.msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8005 and pair it with two large external antennas. Something like this: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41pEEci1lHL.SY300.jpg
Would that be a viable option, or am I best to stick with the Linksys?
I'm not really after better performance by any means, I just want usable performance with the same coverage. The e4200 seems to pump out no where near it's quoted wireless transfer rates anyway, that or the connected devices can't handle it.
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You won't get wireless N to work with pfSense as the cards are too new and the driver support isn't there.
You could position a wireless N access point (or router with the routing disabled) where you will get the best coverage - assuming cabling between the pfSense box and that device isn't a problem.
The Linksys e4200 seems to be a reasonable wireless N device - dual band, etc. You could probably use that as an access point.
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You won't get wireless N to work with pfSense as the cards are too new and the driver support isn't there.
You could position a wireless N access point (or router with the routing disabled) where you will get the best coverage - assuming cabling between the pfSense box and that device isn't a problem.
The Linksys e4200 seems to be a reasonable wireless N device - dual band, etc. You could probably use that as an access point.
Ah, I see. I didn't even have drivers in my head at all.
I guess the Linksys probably is the best bet.
It's a little embarrassing, but I only just realised that putting the e4200 in bridge mode would allow me to see which hosts are connected to it in pfSense. This basically solved one of my two main reasons for wanting to switch to a card.
The other reason of course being that I wanted just a nice little antenna wired into the pfSense box and not an extra powered device.
I'm very new to managing a network properly, and just started the pfSense box project as a little holiday hobby, so there's lots of things I probably have set up badly. I'll do some research and work out where else I should improve my set up.
Currently my ISP modem is still acting as a router on it's own 10.0.0.X network, and the pfsense box is almost like a host machine. I'm assuming, that while it's working, it is an incorrect configuration. Earlier today even, the e4200 was still acting as a router on it's own 192.168.2.X network.
Any tips on how I could improve this would be great, but I'll start looking into sorting it out now.
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I'd guess ideally you want to have only one subnet, managed by pfSense. So, yeah, what you said already, putting the access point and modem into bridge mode and let handle pfSense all the work (DHCP, NAT, firewalling, ISP connection) is a good idea.
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I have a 9db recieving wire standing out from my loft window. I unite with a college system, yet my condo is 4 hinders (almost 300 yards) far from the closest access focus in grounds. In spite of the fact that the outside recieving wire assists with gathering (I get 90% gathering with the reception apparatus, contrasted with ZERO with the inherent smart phone Wifi) - pace and idleness is extremely corrupted. I would regularly get <50 mbps while in school, however I might be fortunate to hit 2 mbps while in my flat.
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What I usally do when i want to use any wireless routers and so on as JUST a wifi access point is to give the wifi router an statick IP on the lan and then just turn of the DHCP on it, and then just link up the lan port on it to the switch of the lan.
And hey presto you have a WIFI accesspoint without any more fuzz.. just connect to the IP u set on it and config the wifi settings and that is it.