Can a pc also be made wireless like a laptop??

TaBunny

Hi can anyone help me. I am not very hardware tech savvy. I have a pc downstairs with a cable broadband and a netgear router sending the signal out around the house so my eldest can connect via wifi for her laptop. My question is this.....

My other daughter has a normal desktop pc in her room and I wondered if it's possilbe to make a pc wireless compatible so that it too can pick up the signal from the router. I don't want to be taking the pc apart as I'm disabled and can't use screwdrivers etc I have no strenght, but I wondered if there was a way to use a usb device to make the pc wireless. It does have an internal 56k modem but we don't use it as that would incur addtional costs for a dial up service and that is pointless when we have the broadband downstairs and the wifi signal beaming round the house.

Hope this isn't too waffley and that someone can understand what I mean and maybe advise us thanks.

jamborino

Yes, just get a USB wireless network adaptor - there are several brands, including Netgear.

TaBunny

jamborino wrote: »

Yes, just get a USB wireless network adaptor - there are several brands, including Netgear.

sorry to sound thick but would that just plug in without having to upgrade or do anything else to the pc? it's quite old pc but does have a modem in it, 40 gig hard drive and 256 ram, would that make any difference?

Miró

jamborino wrote: »

Yes, just get a USB wireless network adaptor - there are several brands, including Netgear.

I am sooo non-techie but managed to set up a Netgear Router and Netgear USB wireless adapter quite easily. (One laptop and one desktop) The techie shop people said that it was best to have the same make for both so that they would be compatible.

jamborino

Well you would have to configure it to 'see' your wireless router but this is usually done by following the setup procedure when you first install the card, but essentially yes you just plug it in.

TaBunny

thanks guys that makes more sense to me now. I have just searched ebay and found the following; NETGEAR WG111T 108 Mbps Wireless Network USB 2 Adapter going for £20 including postage does that sound like a good deal or would it be cheaper in somewhere like pc world sorry to keep asking questions?

jamborino

You can probably find it sightly cheaper if you Froogle it but £20 inc p&p still sounds reasonable.

Incidentally that's the card I use on the older of my 2 laptops (newer one has an integrated wireless adaptor) and it works just fine.

Miró

Thats the one that I have...it's £17.32 on Amazon at the mo....dunno about delivery tho?

Ice_2

just been looking for that one it is a good price I would go for it...:D

fitshase

Which operating system is on the machine?

If it is XP then installation and connection will be easy.

TaBunny

fitshase wrote: »

Which operating system is on the machine?

If it is XP then installation and connection will be easy.

Yes it's XP. Also I'm buying new computer for downstairs, old one is going in daughters room hence the wireless needed. Question is this. Will I need to re load all the virgin broadband and netgear router software onto the new computer? I'm not very good at this stuff and found it very hard to get the virgin broadband up and running the first time.