Vigin media wireless hub

wilson1973

I'm getting a Virgin Media wireless hub delivered next week,could anyone advise if I can use an ethernet connection and ethernet cable to give me a wired connection to this from my pc and still use the hub to give a wireless connection to another device like a Nintendo wii,do I have to do a certain thing with the settings to do this,also will the hub just plug and play or do I need to contact Virgin at the moment I'm using an old Virgin modem called virgin cable modem with usb connection to pc

gjchester

wilson1973 wrote: »

I'm getting a Virgin Media wireless hub delivered next week,could anyone advise if I can use an ethernet connection and ethernet cable to give me a wired connection to this from my pc and still use the hub to give a wireless connection to another device like a Nintendo wii,do I have to do a certain thing with the settings to do this,also will the hub just plug and play or do I need to contact Virgin at the moment I'm using an old Virgin modem called virgin cable modem with usb connection to pc

I got one a few months ago.

Yes you can do what you say, a simple cable to a PC connection, and the WiFi is easy to set up and the details are in the box.

Set up was simple too, you remove the old one, plug the new one in and power it up, you then call a number they give you (box is in the loft so can't tell it you), the automated system recognises your phone no and tells you to leave it for 30 minutes and it activates over the network. I went into town to do a bit of shopping and it was working when I got back, they do it all over the network connection. without you do ing anything more.

There were horror stories of it being unstable, but the current software seems fine now.

wilson1973

Thanks gjchester

thor

Remember that the wii uses the old wep wireless standard which is less secure and you will have to set up the hub for this as well.
If you have other devices hich you also want to connect wirelessly then you can set up an additional 'guest' network so that the hub can operate two encryption methods at the same time(or at least this was what I was told - I have not bothered connecting my wii up so far)

gjchester

thor wrote: »

Remember that the wii uses the old wep wireless standard which is less secure and you will have to set up the hub for this as well.

The Wii can do WPA, it was DS's that could only do WEP...

wilson1973

WPA,WEP I'm confused now!

Ant555

wilson1973 wrote: »

WPA,WEP I'm confused now!

Don't worry about it for now!

As per your original question (answered by gjchester) everything you ask about WILL work.

I recently switched between my original 12+ year old NTL modem to a Virgin Media superhub. Switchover was as gjchester described and took very little time - all automated and I didn't have to speak to anyone.

The SuperHub will, of course, ship with a wifi name and password different from your current set up but if you use the easy to use interface then you can set it to whatever your current details are.

I set my wifi name (SSID) and password on the VM SuperHub to be the same as it was on my original setup and both the Wii and the PS3 just picked it up and worked without me having to do anything on them.

I'd say step 1 is to get the superhub installed and working with your wired connection on the PC.
Then, you are good to go for anything else safe in the knowledge that everything else can be sorted either on your own or with a question here.

Good luck.

exegnomad

One thing to bear in mind is that the superhub works at the speed of the slowest device using it, so if your Nintendo works at the older G standard you won't get the higher/newer N standards. My internet radios are G, so what I did was plug my old modem into one of the ethernet ports (there are 4 on the superhub) for the radios, and still get the faster N standard for wired desktop and wireless laptop.
This also had the advantage that I didn't have to re-enter all the SSID and security settings for the radios as they are still using the old modem.

Ant555

exegnomad wrote: »

One thing to bear in mind is that the superhub works at the speed of the slowest device using it, so if your Nintendo works at the older G standard you won't get the higher/newer N standards.

The superhub will be supplied set to wireless a,b & g standards so Wilson1973 will be fine for the Nintendo wii. (which is 802.11g)

fenlander_uk

exegnomad wrote: »

One thing to bear in mind is that the superhub works at the speed of the slowest device using it, so if your Nintendo works at the older G standard you won't get the higher/newer N standards. My internet radios are G, so what I did was plug my old modem into one of the ethernet ports (there are 4 on the superhub) for the radios, and still get the faster N standard for wired desktop and wireless laptop.
This also had the advantage that I didn't have to re-enter all the SSID and security settings for the radios as they are still using the old modem.

I've often seen this stated but have never experienced it. I have had mixed 54G/54N devices connected wirelesslessly, both to the SH and to other routers and in every case each device has achieved speeds in line with its own wireless card. I suspect this is an urban legend.

Ant555

I have had mixed 54G/54N devices connected wirelesslessly, both to the SH and to other routers and in every case each device has achieved speeds in line with its own wireless card. I suspect this is an urban legend.

Its to do with the frequency.

As I mentioned, the SuperHub will ship set to 2.4GHz which will work with pretty much everything - a,b,g AND n. (including wilson1973's Nintendo wii)
The consequence of it working with pretty much everything is that the frequency can be congested (even in your front room!)

To increase speed, sometimes the range and with less congestion (for now) then the Superhub can optionally be set to 5GHz which means it will ONLY work with 5GHz so all devices must be compatible. 5Ghz devices will usually link to 2.4GHz networks no problem but not the other way round.

I suspect many home users will leave it set to default.

wilson1973, who started this thread, has a Nintendo wii so no need to confuse the issue or mess with frequency for now. If wilson1973 starts having wireless issues then we will probably start simple by suggesting a different channel but lets see what happens.