new house, networking problem

[dtharp12]

I am moving from an apartment to a two story house, in the apartment I could hide my cat5 cable enough to get by. Problem with the house will be that at least two connections will be upstairs (wife's PC and xbox) and one downstairs (my PC) I currently have a linksys BEFSR41 router connecting all 3 to the network. Would it be possible to convert one port to wireless on this router to accomodate the downstairs PC? I can easily put the modem and router upstairs or down, but figured the most economical solution would be upstairs.

And since M$ went with the "used car salesman" marketing approach to the xbox 360, I would like to avoid paying the extra $100 they are going to chrage to make the 360 connect to a wireless network, not to mention buying an adapter for the wifes PC. My mobo has onboard wireless capabilities so no problem there.

Basically just looking for some advice on what my options are and what would be most economical. Another hiccup is that the downstairs PC uses alot of bandwith, I play MMO's and download alot with it.

Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts.

[cmillar6]

your cheapest solution would be to run cat5 cable throughout your new home, although this is sometimes not practical. You cannot "create" a wireless port with your current linksys router. Best thing for you to do would be to invest in a wireless router, I usually recommened Linksys WRT54g and use that to feed the PC downstairs wirelessly. All you need is a wireless PCI card for the PC downstairs. The xbox and PC upstairs can be hardwired to the router, which you should have upstairs. The wireless router should always be at the highest point in your wireless network. Hopefully I have provided some help to you.

[dtharp12]

I've been looking at wireless routers and the WRT54g seems to be the best for my budget, thanks for your help. Looks like the old router can go into the pile of old pc supplies I have building up.

[rspassey]

I have that router, it works throughout our two story concret house, and my laptop gets verystrong and strong signal strength. Im not making any promises, but I think you will get good preformance from the Linksys WRT54G wireless router.

[h2s04]

I use the same (WRT54g) in my basement. It is wired to a PC upstairs but also to a WAP54. The WAP54 will run in a "repeater" mode with a tweak or two (from the Linksys page) and send the same signal as the router. Viola! wireless upstairs and down, and wired. Excellent coverage and pretty secure. But really your best bet is to run copper wherever you can.