Router switch from wired to wireless help

[pullzem]

I've decided to switch from my wired router to a TRENDnet Wireless N Gigabit Router and 2 TRENDnet Wireless N-Draft Adapters. I'm going to leave my 3rd PC on wired into the new router. My OS will be Vista Ultimate 64bit by the time the wireless is delivered.

Wondering if any of you who are experienced using wireless-N could suggest usefull hints for setting up this type of home setup. No PC will be more than 5 feet from the router and I spent 3 hours reading thru all 170 reviews at Newegg and copy/pasting anything that looked important to know when I'm ready to install.

Some things I gathered from multiple reviewers was not to use the setup CD but go straight to the internal setup in the router (I know how to do that), not to let it clone my PC's mac address and do any firmware upgrades before wasting time in setup.

One guy says to turn off auto-channel-scan and pick channel 4 so you don't get interference from neighborhood wireless routers and make sure to use AES encryption otherwise it won't utilize 802.11N. Another says to setup as a static IP and the WAN IP and LAN IP must be on different subnets. Also to set the adapters to use high power, best performance as they default to low power mode. Another said he had to change the date on the router...don't understand how that comes into play. A guy said he disabled Wireless QoS and Wireless Protected Setup to prevent problems he'd seen on other routers. Another says you have to use WPA2 (not WEP) if you want wireless-N...sounds technical. One guy says to make a list of games and software you need to port-forward before you go into setup.

So much information from so many people who may or may not know what they're advising...that's why I'm hoping for confirmations or other suggestions so things will work properly

[htw]

Originally Posted by pullzem

I've decided to switch from my wired router to a TRENDnet Wireless N Gigabit Router and 2 TRENDnet Wireless N-Draft Adapters. I'm going to leave my 3rd PC on wired into the new router. My OS will be Vista Ultimate 64bit by the time the wireless is delivered.

Wondering if any of you who are experienced using wireless-N could suggest usefull hints for setting up this type of home setup. No PC will be more than 5 feet from the router and I spent 3 hours reading thru all 170 reviews at Newegg and copy/pasting anything that looked important to know when I'm ready to install.

Some things I gathered from multiple reviewers was not to use the setup CD but go straight to the internal setup in the router (I know how to do that), not to let it clone my PC's mac address and do any firmware upgrades before wasting time in setup.

One guy says to turn off auto-channel-scan and pick channel 4 so you don't get interference from neighborhood wireless routers and make sure to use AES encryption otherwise it won't utilize 802.11N. Another says to setup as a static IP and the WAN IP and LAN IP must be on different subnets. Also to set the adapters to use high power, best performance as they default to low power mode. Another said he had to change the date on the router...don't understand how that comes into play. A guy said he disabled Wireless QoS and Wireless Protected Setup to prevent problems he'd seen on other routers. Another says you have to use WPA2 (not WEP) if you want wireless-N...sounds technical. One guy says to make a list of games and software you need to port-forward before you go into setup.

So much information from so many people who may or may not know what they're advising...that's why I'm hoping for confirmations or other suggestions so things will work properly

Try to take it all with a grain of salt, of course. One or more of the people are obviously confusing wireless encryption "methods", with the algorithm/cipher type.

If your devices support it (and since you are buying new N cards, they do), then use WPA2, which uses AES-CCMP encryption.

Update to the latest firmware for the router from the manufacturer, before you bother doing any setup.

WAN & LAN on diff subnets? heh... The WAN will be set up to acquire your WAN IP/DNS/etc. from your ISP. You LAN subnet will default to probably 192.168.0, or 192.168.1. DHCP should be enabled by default. I'm sure, if anyone is mentioning static IP, they are talking about computers behind the router; that will make it easier to port forward to a specific computer, without using triggers. I personally prefer to just use a static DHCP lease instead.

Leave auto-channel scan on, unless you think you have an interference issue, and I will be highly surprised if you do.

QOS algorithms have come a long way, and work pretty good IMO. I'd leave it on.

Just MHO.

htw

[pullzem]

Thanks HTW

I'm giving this another shot as soon as I get off my butt and install Ultimate 64 onto the empty 750gb HD. I screwed it up last time...I didn't follow exact instructions in the guide...setting direct line to cable modem first, then installing gigabit router

Needless to say, I spent several hours trying to manhandle my screwed up installation to make it work...my 3rd PC that was left on wired, connected fine and my 2nd PC that I put one of the 2 N adapters into, scanned and found every other WAN around me but mine. It even found the apt managers unprotected WAN and my digital phone, which connects thru USB on that PC, jumped onto my manager's WAN and my phone works great...even though the connection is only 40% from 150 feet away on the other side of the next apt building.

I finally put my old router back and reset it just so I could get Internet, which I never did on the wireless router (most likely due to my incorrect initial setup). I'll bet I went thru that router's internal setup 3 dozen times trying to fix that one something that was wrong. I stayed "wired" to it the whole time, thinking that was better than also trying to install the other N adapter. Figured trying to get 2 new hardware devices to work would be harder than 1 at a time

I'll jump back onto this project after installing the new OS which would require doing it all over again, anyway...I'm thinking. Still dreading having to reinstall so much software once the 64bit OS is in place. As long as my apt manager doesn't setup protection on her WAN, I've got phone service so I'm procrastinating somewhat due to that

Oh yeah...my 2nd PC which is the only one with wireless for now...shows each of the surrounding WAN's on different channels so your auto-scan sounds better to let it find an available one.