Using a PC to send wireless to my PowerBook

twitchy

Hello all, as you can see, I'm new so I'll be brief.



I have a USB Cable Modem that "must" plug in to my PC. (They say they don't support Mac and who am I to argue) Typically, I just share the connection on XP, plug my mac in to it's now unused ethernet port with DHCP and everything is grand. But... what I would like to do, is use a wireless card in the PC to allow my built in Wi-Fi on the PowerBook to connect using that.



Now this is something a little new for me, and my understanding (which may be wrong) is that a wireless card that plugs in the PCI on the PC is for receiving only. If there is no "base station" and only the one card, can it send? Am I on the right track? Basically, the only reason I have the PC is to establish that connection and be a nice firewall/router. I'm trying to get away from having to use the ethernet cable though.



Any thoughts or comments would help. Thanks.

miscstudent

I'm not quite sure if this helps you, but i use a set-up similar to yours. I bought a wireless router so i could netowrk my laptop through-out the house. When you buy one (Netgear makes arguably the best networking gear) you hook the ethernet cable to your computer, then to the wireless router. You dont need to use a wireless card for your desktop. Then you connect to your computer. To do this in Mac OS X you: Click the text at the top of the screen (when you are using the finder) that reads "GO." Then on the drop down list you will see "Connect to Server." A new window appears. If you are using Panther, type in the LAN address for the computer (it should be by default a 192.168.2.xx number). Then your Powerbook will try to connect to your desktop. If it's successful, type in your username and password. If you dont have a Password, leave it blank. If you have no clue what your user name is try Administrator. From there on out it should be easy sailing.



~Miscstudent

twitchy

Well, the point is, that my PC is already acting as the router. Currently, it is hard wired to the Mac using standard Ethernet. I wan to know if I put a wireless card in the PC, will it "Transmit" the signal as well as recieve? So it can share a signal that comes in via USB and i can use the built in Airport on the Powerbook.

twitchy

Basically, I need to know if the wireless NIC that you buy can broadcast to the Mac? Anyone.. anyone.. Beuller.. Beuller...

sport73

Quote:

Originally posted by Twitchy

Basically, I need to know if the wireless NIC that you buy can broadcast to the Mac? Anyone.. anyone.. Beuller.. Beuller...

Should be able to do it without problem. Assuming you're using Windows XP, you should be able to launch the INTERNET CONNECTION SHARING WIZARD and it will walk you through the steps. Essentially, it will let you assign the Wireless NIC as the 192.168.1.1 router and share point for the internet connection on your machine.

karl kuehn

Unfortunately, there was a solid intent on the makers of WiFi to keep clients and base-stations separate. Some cards with some drivers can server as base stations, but on windows most of the drivers don't support that mode.



The big problem in this settup is that the cable modem is usb-only. If it supported Ethernet, then you would have a lot of options.

twitchy

Yes that's what I thought. That's why I'm having such a hard time finding the information I want about a card that will do what I want it to. I may have to get a wireless router, plug it in to the PC and serve it from there, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using the PC to act as the router then. And it will cost a bit more of course.



Nothing can ever be easy I guess. I bet a Mac could do it though.

sport73

Quote:

Originally posted by Twitchy

Yes that's what I thought. That's why I'm having such a hard time finding the information I want about a card that will do what I want it to. I may have to get a wireless router, plug it in to the PC and serve it from there, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using the PC to act as the router then. And it will cost a bit more of course.



Nothing can ever be easy I guess. I bet a Mac could do it though.

Just to confirm, I use my Mac for this purpose all the time. My PowerMac G5 acts as a Wireless AP to my entire floor in my office, and I use my PowerBook while on the road to serve up hotel broadband to myself (and others, since I'm generous).



More proof that Macs are amazingly powerful, flexible tools.

twitchy

Of course a Mac can do it. Probably right out of the box to. *sigh*

ericeason

I am not sure about your mac, but with mine, I can create a wireless network without a base station by clicking on the airport icon on the menu bar and then click create network.



Then you would need to share your internet connection from the pc over the wireless network that you created.



Hope this helps.

twitchy

That's kind of what I thought. I just found a great article on the O'Reilly site explaining many of my questions. I know about the sharing a network but just wasn't sure if an internal PCI wireless card, that is typically used and spoken about as "receiving" could act as the base. So this article confirmed what you mentioned, that it can, and pretty easily it appears.



Thanks for the help.