Wii AND T'internet

[John]

My son wants me to connect our Wii to the www so he can play his friends at Mario Cart etc. We do not have a wireless connection so we would have to go down the wired route. Until I redecorate etc and can put an RJ45 socket near the TV I was thinking of running a (loose) cable between the PC's RJ45 Hub and the Wii Lan adapter (USB to RJ45). The main problem I can see is the length of the patch cable required which would be 12 to 15 metres as it would need to go from our 'office' down the stairs and into the living room. Will it work over such a distance? We have a BT broadband connection. The Wii internet connection will only be used occasionally so I do not really want to go down the WiFi route and have to set up the PC's again.

Cheers

John

[Colin Wilson]

Absolutely - 100m+ should be no issue.

You can also get the "powerline" adaptors now that send the ethernet=20 signal over mains wiring for abot =A345 IIRC now.

[Toby]

The cable is well under the 100 meter max length, so that will be fine!

Otherwise you can just buy a wireless access point and plug that into your hub, and just connect the Wii to that wirelessly (No reconfiguration of the PC required!)

Toby...

[Graeme]

In message , John writes

My son's Xbox is connected by a patch cable about 15 feet long, without problems, and our 'shop' computer is connected to our home network using a cable about 30 meters long. Again, no problems.

Going off at a slight tangent, we have a four port router, but six devices to connect, so three are connected directly to the router, with the other three connected to a hub, the hub being connected to the 4th router port. It works, but is there any reason not to use such a configuration?

[The Natural Philosopher]

It will be fine.

10Mps cat 5 is good for about a kilometer, at 100Mbps its good for a couple of hundred meters..

There are issues with using repeaters, but if you use a switch you should be fine

[Andrew Gabriel]

Should work fine. (The hub is more likely a switch.)

[John Rumm]

Yup, well within the Ethernet spec...

You could simply add a Wireless Access Point (WAP) to your existing wired LAN, and use it for the WII and nothing else - no need to change anything else.

The other option is a pair of homeplug adaptors. See something like part number: NET-PL-85PE-TWIN here:

[dennis]

What Wii lan adapter? My Wii has built in wired networking, you just plug in a network patch cable.

[Laurence Payne]

If you can run a cable 15m to another room, you can run one a few inches to a wireless access point.

[Dave Liquorice]

Not according to Nintendo:

And looking at the connections in manual there is no ethernet port.

[BigWallop]

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..

[Bob Eager]

Yes, but only if you buy the LAN adaptor, which as I recall costs about the same as a wireless access point...

[BigWallop]

> >

> >

I know nothing about them things. I just looked them up out of interest. Who knows, one day I may be asked to do the same networking job for a customer.

Maybe not, &#39;cause all our customers are getting on a bit, just like me cell. :-)

There&#39;e only one type of Wii us oldies do these days. lol

[Bob Eager]

I was forced to, having a techie son who liked the idea. He would have paid for teh LAN adaptor, but I paid for the wireless access point. Saved money, since other son now has a Wii too, as well as a PSP. I won&#39;t allow his DS on it as the old DS only does WEP.

And it&#39;s useful for visitors..

[BigWallop]

After reading a bit more about them, I think I&#39;d have gone the wireless route too. As you say, the wireless system can be expanded without any more cabling or more equipment to attach.

But, each to their own. ..

[Dave Liquorice]

Er thats a subsection of the page I linked to? Do you miss the "not"?

The Wii has no ethernet port and needs the, supposedly Wii specific, USB to ethernet LAN adapter to connect to ethernet. It does have built in *wireless* networking.

[Graeme]

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

Excellent, thank you. Yes, it certainly works - the reason for the post was just to ensure no-one would say I shouldn&#39;t be doing it, for some obscure reason :-)

[dennis]

I think you are correct, I forgot that I connected it using WiFi. Its on one of my three access points now I have had a look. Its the TV that&#39;s on wired Ethernet.

[Mike Barnes]

Yes, it can even (with no effort from you) be expanded to include your neighbours and people parked in the road outside.

In other words, think through the security implications before going wireless. There might not be any security problem, but if so that should be a conclusion you reach rather than an assumption you make.