Linking a wireless internet connection to a standalone desktop.

[Clayton]

Well, as some of you may know, I'm in first year University, and just got back, however, the place where my desktop used to be is now taken up by "stuff", leaving me nowhere to set it up, so it's sitting in a box in my room for now. Fast forward to yesterday, where I thought about the idea of having my laptop in my room receiving the wireless signal from my router downstairs, and sending it via a network cable to the desktop that I have room to set up in my room. I've searched google, but either fail at picking the right search phrase, or it's just not easily doable, I'm not sure. If someone knows, it would be awesome if I could get some sort of explanation or link to a guide on how to do this, thanks

[Tony]

On your laptop, enable it to share the internet connection on LAN. It should be an option somewhere in the network settings.

On the desktop, setup connection via "connect through a network" route. Should be in network setup options.

[Insectoid]

Are you receiving the signal wirelessly, and then using it like a repeater to send another wireless signal upstairs? I don't think that's possible. Only one wireless signal per card at a time.

[Clayton]

My laptop is receiving the signal wirelessly, then the plan is to have that relay the connection to a standalone desktop.

[Insectoid]

is it relaying via a wire? or wirelessly?

[Tony]

Clayton @ Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:52 pm wrote:

sending it via a network cable to the desktop

[rdrake]

What Tony said. In XP it's referred to as Internet Connection Sharing, or ICS.

In the network connections on the laptop you right click on the connection you want to share. Look at the properties, there should be one that says "share my connection through ICS" or something similar. Check it.

Connect the desktop to the laptop directly using any old network cable and configure the desktop (I forget how, it shouldn't be too difficult).

Hopefully now that you know it's called ICS you should be able to find ample amounts of information.

[md]

Desktop -> laptop will either need to go through a switch/hub/router or use a cross over cable.

If you have a wireless router (which are cheap and well... highly recommended) then you can also use it to bridge the wifi to ethernet.

[jeffgreco13]

i use my macbook to do this alllll the time... ive used it to play my xbox live on my big screen where no ethernet reaches..

[OneOffDriveByPoster]

Windows also has "network bridging". If you have a router anyway, you can use that and the desktop can appear on the same network as the rest of the computers.