Wireless Access Point to internet via Wireless router?

[PhilHalf]

Hi all,

I've currently got a wireless network setup using a LinkSys WAG54G ADSL router and it's generally working well for me.
At the moment, the router is downstairs (simply because the telephone line is downstairs) and the majority of the PCs connecting to it are upstairs. Occasionally, I get some issues with signal strength on the PCs upstairs. I'm also looking at connecting some wired network devices to the network (i.e. games consoles) and was wondering how to best attack these two issues.
What I was looking at was a 5 port Wireless access point. I know this will allow the wired devices to connect to wireless devices, but I'm not sure how or whether these could then connect into the router for internet access...
Basically, what I'm asking is would a 5 port access point a) connect my wired devices to the internet via my current wireless router and b) would this improve my signal strength upstairs (assuming that the access point was located upstairs)?

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions,

PhilHalf

[glc]

Yes, if it's a compatible access point that can act as a bridge and the WAG can service a bridge in addition to local clients. You may need addon high gain antennas on the router and bridge to solve the signal strength issues.

I'd contact Linksys for solid advice and get an appropriate access point/bridge from them rather than a different manufacturer.

[PhilHalf]

Thanks. I had already decided to go with the same manufacturer just to try and make it easier and was looking at the WET54GS5 http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...avigationKey=0
Assuming that bridge would work (I will query Linksys as you suggested) how would I go about using DHCP on the clients?
At the moment, the router deals with the DHCP side. Would I need to disable DHCP on the bridge and let the router deal with it all, or would I need to setup seperate ranges on both devices?
Also, how would things like port forwarding work to the wired devices? I'm assuming I'd need to port forward from the router to the bridge, then from the bridge to the client? Would that work the same for wireless devices, or would they just forward straight from the router?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm new to wireless and quite rusty on networking in general!

Thanks again for your help,

PhilHalf

[glc]

The bridge should either pull an IP from the router, or you may have to set it static, but all clients accessing the bridge will pull their IP's from the router. The bridge will pass all that through. The bridge does not change how you forward ports. It's simply a passthrough device that happens to have its own IP.