[timryan]

I am trying to help out my sister with her home setup. She has an Airport Extreme that is accessed by an iBook with Airport, and a PC with wireless card. Her daughter is upstairs on a Windows 98 PC. My question is: is it possible to network the Windows 98 PC directly to a new Airport Extreme via ethernet- and I mean connect the PC directly to the Airport Extreme's ethernet port, not via a hub. They live in a 4 storey house, and the PC is three floors away from the airport extreme. I guess another option might be to buy an Express and swap them so the Extreme is next to the PC. Any thoughts anyone? Thanks!

[ghporter]

The AirPort Extreme base has two ethernet ports. The one on the far left, looking at the base from the back, is for the broadband connection, and the other (next to the Internet port) for a LAN connection-plug the daughter's computer in here. The ethernet standard says you can have up to 100 meters (!) of cable between two ethernet nodes; I think three floors of a house is significantly less than that!

Now your only problem is running the cable so people don't trip on it.

[timryan]

Originally posted by ghporter:
The AirPort Extreme base has two ethernet ports. The one on the far left, looking at the base from the back, is for the broadband connection, and the other (next to the Internet port) for a LAN connection-plug the daughter's computer in here. The ethernet standard says you can have up to 100 meters (!) of cable between two ethernet nodes; I think three floors of a house is significantly less than that!

Now your only problem is running the cable so people don't trip on it.

WHY did they make the names so similar?!!!! What I meant to say was that I wanted to connect the PC directly to a new Airport EXPRESS- not the extreme, and if that was possible, or is the ethernet port on the EXPRESS only for broadband/hub connections. I didn't want to run cable. The other option I thought was to bring in the broadband cable connection to a new EXPRESS, and move the EXTREME upstairs to where the PC is and so extend the network and have the extra port available to the windows 98 PC. Sorry for my incorrect post.

[ghporter]

Originally posted by timryan:
I wanted to connect the PC directly to a new Airport EXPRESS- not the extreme, and if that was possible, or is the ethernet port on the EXPRESS only for broadband/hub connections.

The ethernet port on the Express is for either Internet or LAN.

I think you can use the Express in the way you describe. It doesn't specifically address the subject (that I can find) in the AirPort Express manual, so I'm hedging my bets, but I seem to recall discussions of this recently. This Apple Knowledge Base article at least implies that using the Express as a Wireless Distribution System client is what you want to do.

I think I'll be corrected pretty quickly if I've overstated the Express' capabilities here.

There is another option that should cost less than an AirPort Express. You could buy something like a Linksys WRT54G wireless router and use it as a wireless client. Not all wireless routers can do this, but this one can.

[timryan]

Thanks for your help. One more question- can I use the EXPRESS as the primary and the EXTREME as the repeater? ie have the broadband come into the express, and put the extreme (as a receiver) upstairs next to the PC, thereby using the LAN port for the W98 PC? I know you would normally have it the other way around. They are gradually migrating to mac, so I would rather spend money on future-proofing their setup rather than for example buying wireless cards for the PC. Thanks

[larkost]

You can actually go in either direction. You just have to set whichever one is not connected to the broadband into WDS mode. Then the main ethernet port will become a bridging port. I have done this several times.