Can I plug a wireless access point into a hub?

[dwn]

Quick question.

I have a wired network at home with a dsl connection. I want to add wireless ability while maintaining the existing wired ability. easy enough, I just get a wireless access point and a wireless card, right?

I am looking to get this : D-Link DWL-1000AP from tiger direct, they have a good deal it looks like.

So my question is, can I just plug this thing into my hub which conncets to my cisco 678 router(which works as a dhcp server), and then I'll be good to go? Or do I need to plug the access point into a router?

And one more question, if I use this exact access point, I can expect that more than one wireless device will be able to connect at one time, right? It's not like I have to get an access point for each laptop/pda that I want to connect, right?

Thanks for all your help

 

[ivwshane]

Yes you can plug it into the hub but I'm not sure why you would want to.

Yes you can hook more than one device up wirelessly.

 

[JackMDS]

Wireless Access Point (WAP) can be plugged into a Hub, or a Switch, or into the switch of a Non Wireless Cable/DSL Router. That it is the way it suppose to work.

More here: AT - FAQ. What do I need for wireless networking?

 

[ktwebb]

An Access Point (AP) is simply a wireless hub so yes, like has been mentioned, that would work fine. It is akin to cascading wired hubs when you add an ap to your existing wired hub/switch infrastructure. Some AP's do have an association limit but at minimun it would be something like 64. Basically any AP would bog down and choke before it reached its association limitation. Cisco AP's limit is 1024 users. On most AP's, especially the SOHO budget AP's, anything more than a few is too many. At least where file sharing is concerned. Internet sharing is another matter because the bandwidth cap does not exceen the AP's capabilities normally.

 

[Electronics4Life]

Would plugging the Access Point into a router require a crossover cable? Or is the access point essentially always uplinking?

 

[rw120555]

Originally posted by: Electronics4Life
Would plugging the Access Point into a router require a crossover cable? Or is the access point essentially always uplinking?

Crossover cable not required, at least not on mine.

 

[Electronics4Life]

Dang. I was hoping that was the causing of my EXTREMELY slow..slower than any dialup speeds. BTW the access point I was refering too is the DWL-900ap by dlink.

 

[rw120555]

Originally posted by: Electronics4Life
Dang. I was hoping that was the causing of my EXTREMELY slow..slower than any dialup speeds. BTW the access point I was refering too is the DWL-900ap by dlink.

Is everything slow or just the wireless part of your network? You might try disabling wep and see what that does. Or, connect the wap directly to your cable or dls modem and see if that gets things zooming.

 

[Electronics4Life]

I don't have wep enabled yet so that is out of the picture. Only the wireless asspect of my connection is slow. A little background. I have had a cable modem with a dlink 704 router for about a year with no problems. I just bought a Dlink DWL-900ap access point and a DWL-520 pci wireless card. The card reports a %100 signal and like 98% link quality? i forget the wording. For testing purposes I moved the access point very close to the computer with the wireless card. I can ping all of the computers on my home lan including the access point and the computer with the wireless card. But surfing the web or browsing the network directories is unbareable. I have also tried 3 different straight cables..hence why I asked about the crossover cable. Any other thoughts? I've been troubleshooting this for about 5 hours...sigh

 

[rw120555]

I've been troubleshooting this for about 5 hours...sigh

And you could spend another 10 hours just to find out it is a hardware problem somewhere. If possible, try your laptop out an a different wireless network, or get somebody with a laptop known to work to come over and try out your WAP.

Also, check for firmware upgrades; make sure you haven't accidentally configured it to only connect at a slow speed; if you have a 2.4ghz phone, disconnect it and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Electronics4Life]

Funny you should mention firmware upgrades. Last night I tried to update the Access Points firmware and it locked it up, wlan light went solid and i never could get a connection after that update. Today I exchanged it. So I guess I can eliminate the access point as a hardware problem as I am on my second one. The computer that now has the wireless card in it(which is a mid tower computer) had a very fast connection using a wired nic card in the same pci slot. Do i guess hardware wise the straight through cable or wireless pci card are the only things left. Oh, and there are no 2.4 gh phones in my apt. BUT, I did just mention aptartment. Maybe some elses phone is messing me up. Also my wlan light is constantly flashing even when i have the computer with the wireless card turned off. Does this mean it is picking up someone elses card? My card does not detect any other access points or routers(it has a scan feature).

 

[Electronics4Life]

One other thing I was just reading about the dwl-1000ap at tigerdirect.com. It said "In bridge mode, the DWL-1000AP can be directly connected to a Broadband Residential Gateway or a DSL/Cable modem for high-speed wireless Internet access". I currently have my 900ap in "access point" mode. Could this be the problem?

 

[rw120555]

Also my wlan light is constantly flashing even when i have the computer with the wireless card turned off.

Hmm, since you don't have WEP on, maybe 20 other people are already sharing with you Sounds like it could be a NIC problem, or maybe you don't have it configured right or something.

One other thing I was just reading about the dwl-1000ap at tigerdirect.com. It said "In bridge mode, the DWL-1000AP can be directly connected to a Broadband Residential Gateway or a DSL/Cable modem for high-speed wireless Internet access". I currently have my 900ap in "access point" mode. Could this be the problem?

There is another thread talking about the confusing use of the term "bridge". In this case, I'm not sure what it is talking about, but I think you want access point mode. It may be that the terms are (confusingly) being used as synonyms in this case, i.e. bridge = ethernet/wireless bridge = Access Point.

 

[Electronics4Life]

UPDATE: I now have fast wireless internet! The problem ended up being my wireless pci card's drivers. I exchanged my card at the store and brought it home and thought crap there is still a problem. So I decided to try the card in a different computer and it worked perfectly. So i uninstalled all drivers from the "problem" computer. Put the card back in, installed fresh drivers and bam..works perfectly. Thanx for all the help

 

[rw120555]

Great. Firmware and drivers, that is probably a good place to start with most hardware problems. You want the latest versions anyway, so you might as well do that first and see if all the other problems conveniently disappear.