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Best External WIFI Adapter?
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Big Mac
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May 24, 2010, 02:32 AM
 
After losing out on two wireless PCI adapters that should have theoretically been compatible with my G5 but were not (see angelmb's PCI WIFI adapter thread in the Power Mac forum), I tried setting up a regular router as a wireless bridge and failed at that. As a result, I'm now looking for external WIFI adapters. (I'm still going to try ethernet over power adapters, but I also want to try non-power line adapter options.)

My two main considerations are the adapter has to offer an Ethernet port, not just USB, and it has to cost under $60. If anyone has experience with these products - good or bad - please let me know. Currently I'm looking at devices from 2WIRE and Trendnet.

Also, please note I'm looking specifically for WIFI adapters/bridges to put non-WIFI clients on existing WIFI networks, rather than regular wireless routers/access points.
( Last edited by Big Mac; May 24, 2010 at 03:16 AM. )

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
Simon
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May 24, 2010, 05:48 AM
 
The AP Express should easily do what you want. But even refurbished, it's $79 rather than <$60. Used maybe?
     
Big Mac  (op)
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May 24, 2010, 06:47 AM
 
Good point, I didn't consider the Airport Express at all. So it can reliably connect to a non-AP primary router?

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ghporter
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May 24, 2010, 07:29 AM
 
An older Linksys WRT54G (pre-version 5) running third party firmware (DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT) should be great as a wireless bridge-but you have to find one to start with. Once they got to V5 and changed the processor and OS, Linksys wireless routers stopped being cool...

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Big Mac  (op)
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May 24, 2010, 07:53 AM
 
Yeah, I was actually trying to get my WRT54G2 set up as a bridge with the stock firmware. I had some hope it would work out but it didn't. There is a way to get DD-WRT running on this version of the router, but it's a painful process because the stock firmware was changed to prevent third party firmware from being accepted by the regular updater (of course). I guess it would be a cool hack to work on but it's rather involved (turning on an ftp client in the router) and my time is more valuable than that. Thank you for referencing the other third party firmware options, which I was not previously aware of. Maybe one of the other distributions has found a better way to get up and running on my model. I don't understand what interest Linksys/Cisco has in ruining hacker fun by making the newer routers nearly impossible to hack.

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Simon
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May 24, 2010, 10:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
Good point, I didn't consider the Airport Express at all. So it can reliably connect to a non-AP primary router?
It sure should. It's 802.11n/a/g/b and it supports WPA2 just fine.
     
Big Mac  (op)
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May 26, 2010, 01:34 AM
 
I was reading experiences on getting the AP Express to work as a bridge with non-Apple routers. It seems that you first have to set it up as its own network because the assistant isn't savvy enough to deal with non-Airport Extreme routers, but after that you can go in and changes the settings to make it work with your existing router.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
Simon
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May 26, 2010, 02:13 AM
 
I never use the assistant. I just hook it up via Ethernet and set the parameters by hand. There aren't many so it's quickly done.
     
Big Mac  (op)
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May 28, 2010, 06:23 AM
 
I wasn't sure if Airport access points could be configured manually.

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