Wireless Woes

Since we didn’t make it out to Utah before Christmas last week, our days were wide open. Stacy wanted to use the time to clear out the office and move Scarlett’s crib in there. Our hope is that we can let her cry in the crib without fear of waking the girls. Maybe then she’ll learn to self-soothe and we can get a decent night’s sleep again. Part of the office move involved dismantling the computer desk and moving it into the living room downstairs.

It only cost me $230 to do it, too.

Why 230 clams? Because my HP Media Center PC decided to spontaneously fry its power supply in the short trip between the office and the living room. I didn’t want to accept that it was the problem, but the rapidly blinking power indicator on the back of the supply was hard to ignore. We were also leaving the cable modem and wireless router in the room upstairs, so I had to get a wireless card for the HP, too.

230 smackers and a trip to CompUSA later and I have a working computer thrumming along with a powerful 500 watt supply and a brand spanking new Wireless-N network card. Who knew moving a computer one level down in my house could be so expensive?

Speaking of Wireless-N, I couldn’t be more frustrated with Linksys. It’s not really their fault that the industry can’t settle on the next high speed wireless protocol, but damn it, I can’t seem to get the same components in my network at the same time.

When I started building our wireless network, I used D-Link equipment. After many frustrating attempts to keep my computers on the network, I gave up and went for my tried-and-true brand, Linksys. At the time, they had come out with a new Wireless-G overlay called SRX. This used multiple-in, multiple-out channels to increase range and compression to increase speeds. I was ecstatic with the 108mbps connections I was making with my Dell desktop and work laptop.

Then I got my personal laptop. This is when Linksys first let me down. My new laptop has a PCMCIA express port, but Linksys doesn’t make anything but PCMCIA cards. Alas, I was stuck with nothing but the built-in wireless-G connection, back to 54mpbs for me.

Later, Linksys came out with new SRX protocols, including 2.0, 200, and 400. You’d think all I needed to do was upgrade the firmware on my router to use them, right? Wrong. SRX 1.0 is not upgradable. Thanks a lot, Linksys.

The latest wrinkle in my wireless network woes is Wireless-N. CompUSA no longer carries any SRX components. So my new wireless card in the HP is not compatible with my SRX network. If this draft of the wireless protocol happens to be the one that is picked for the industry, then I’ll have one component ready for the new system. In the meantime, I have one more component that is locked down to 54mbps.

How much will it cost to upgrade my entire network to Wireless-N? Around 230 bones.