Another Wireless question

[Sean Troy]

Matt's post got me thinking. I found out yesterday I will need to connect 8 laptops through a wireless connection so I will have to get wireless cards for the laptops. No cable available. The wireless router(s)I think there are actually two routers mounted overhead in a very large room with the routers about 20 ft. overhead.The routers are G but with wide open bandwidth. Would there be any benefit to using N cards for the laptops or should I stick with G? thanks for any info, Sean

[Matt Meiser]

I'm very confused.

You say there's no cable. You mean no cable from the cable compnay for an internet connection? If not, are you saying you are going to use wireless broadband cards from a cell company, one for each laptop? That's going to be expensive!

If yes to that, why do the laptops need to communicate to each other? If not, then there's no reason to worry about a wireless network.

If there's an existing wireless network in the room that has an internet connection and you just need to connect to that, there's no point in N-card if the network is G.

How old are these laptops that they don't have built-in wireless network capability? I can't remember the last laptop I had that didn't have built in wireless! Seriously, I think its been at least 10 years.

[Sean Troy]

I'm very confused.

You say there's no cable. You mean no cable from the cable compnay for an internet connection? If not, are you saying you are going to use wireless broadband cards from a cell company, one for each laptop? That's going to be expensive!

If yes to that, why do the laptops need to communicate to each other? If not, then there's no reason to worry about a wireless network.

If there's an existing wireless network in the room that has an internet connection and you just need to connect to that, there's no point in N-card if the network is G.

How old are these laptops that they don't have built-in wireless network capability? I can't remember the last laptop I had that didn't have built in wireless! Seriously, I think its been at least 10 years.
Hi Matt, here's what I got. I have 8 old IBM Thinkpads running XP. I need them to be able to connect to the internet through a wireless connection. The location they will be used in has wirless so that not the problem at this time. My first problem is I can not figure out how to connect these to a wireless connection at my house so i can test them. I don't have any problem with our own computers in our house as they all connect wirelessly. What do I need to look for on these 8 laptops to see if they are even wireless ready or capable? Thanks, sean

[Matt Meiser]

What's the model number off the bottom?

[Sean Troy]

What's the model number off the bottom?
I can't find anything that says model number. There is a G40 at the bottom of the screen but nothing on the bottom of the laptop that says model number.

[Sean Troy]

More info from the internet doing a Google search:7/17/03 - IBM has redesigned the laptop concept with its new ThinkPad G40 desktop replacement. Its more prominent design feature is the use of a slanted keyboard that provides a more ergonomic layout. The included Pentium 4 3.0 GHz desktop processor gives it a lot of power, but that's about all the positive there is to say about this system. The large 15" SXGA+ LCD screen is very big, but is driven by the highly limited Intel Extreme integrated graphics. To make matters worse, the graphics processor needs to share memory with the already low 256MB of RAM. IBM also fails to give an integrated wireless network option with the new system. While it has 4 USB 2.0 ports for expansion, it does not have a IEEE1394 port.

[Matt Meiser]

Those are old. I'd just go buy an inexpensive USB wireless dongle and give that a try. Too bad you aren't close--I've got one sitting in my desk drawer I could let you try.

[Sean Troy]

Yup, old there are but free. I'll try one and see how it works. they are all the same laptop. Thanks, Sean