# PC Wireless Adapter Advice



## The Wonky Sheep (Sep 17, 2014)

Hey guys,
I've recently moved house and am having a few issues with the wireless connection on my gaming PC, which is now situated 2 stories above the router. I am able to connect to the router, however the computer intermittently loses connection to the network and my ping when gaming is terrible, to the point that online gaming is impossible.

I've tested the connection in the same room as my PC with my laptop and pings are perfectly fine and it never loses connection to the network.

So my question is, would the best solution be to replace the wireless adapter on my PC (it's some cheap PCI card) and if so should I stick with internal or go USB? Or, would it be better to get a Powerline adapter?

Thanks for the help in advance.


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## Kursah (Sep 17, 2014)

I would use a USB adapter...there's a Rosewill one for cheap that I keep around for test and bench purposes. 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166056

For $13 you can't beat it, in-face I'd pay full price...I have almost $100 USB adaptors from big names in networking that are horrid in comparison. The antenna ensures a solid signal.

That or run an Ethernet cable to your PC from your switch connection on your router. That would be best for gaming...but I can't say I've had any issues when I used that Rosewill adapter...ever. It is on-par with my Asus Z87-Pro's integrated wifi.


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## The Wonky Sheep (Sep 17, 2014)

Thanks for help! I'll give it a try.


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## GhostRyder (Sep 17, 2014)

The Wonky Sheep said:


> Hey guys,
> I've recently moved house and am having a few issues with the wireless connection on my gaming PC, which is now situated 2 stories above the router. I am able to connect to the router, however the computer intermittently loses connection to the network and my ping when gaming is terrible, to the point that online gaming is impossible.
> 
> I've tested the connection in the same room as my PC with my laptop and pings are perfectly fine and it never loses connection to the network.
> ...


If you know the exact location of the router compared to your PC I would say the best option for your PC (not a laptop correct?) is to get a PCIE card and get a focused direction antenna.  If you get one of those you can focus all the reception area towards the box and get much better performance and signal strength than an AOE antenna.

I did that when I was younger (Years ago) and my parents had a wireless box on the opposite side of the house.


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## remixedcat (Sep 17, 2014)

High power->Amped ACA1 and look at my reviews for perf. 
Stability->Netgear A6200 (same as above for most reviews)
Price->Edimax AC600


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## newtekie1 (Sep 17, 2014)

Kursah said:


> I would use a USB adapter...there's a Rosewill one for cheap that I keep around for test and bench purposes.
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166056
> 
> For $13 you can't beat it, in-face I'd pay full price...I have almost $100 USB adaptors from big names in networking that are horrid in comparison. The antenna ensures a solid signal.
> ...



Yep, that is a awesome adapter.  I've been using them for clients for a while now.  Though I recently switch to this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166074

For the couple bucks more it is worth it for dual antennas, IMO.


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## remixedcat (Sep 17, 2014)

No 5Ghz tho on that adapter...


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## newconroer (Sep 17, 2014)

Do you HAVE to use wireless?


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## The Wonky Sheep (Sep 17, 2014)

Hey guys, thanks for all the reply and I'll look through the options. I don't necessarily HAVE to use Wireless, it just seemed like the easiest solution to the problem.


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## remixedcat (Sep 17, 2014)

One thing to note with the A6200 if you got Aruba access points (mine are aruba RAP109s) sometimes it will connect at 802.11a instead of .an speeds. I will be contacting aruba about that shortly.


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## Jhelms (Sep 17, 2014)

Are you able to move the router? No other cable outlets or?


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## Baum (Sep 18, 2014)

my experience with wifi is taht most passive antennas are junk....

and wifi over an usb stick is kinda meh for a desktop, get a good pci-e x1 or oderl pci W-Lan Card with more than one antenna (mimo) a modern one.

My last ones where from TP Link USB Sticks and internal Cards they work all fine just not for CS:GO, ping to high and dropouts with any card i tested, the final reliefe was an antenna replacement on my wifi card to get a stronger and more sensetive signal, it did the trick... gaming for a long time now with 69ms ping constantly.

Don't go Powerline, that gives you other problems like cheap AC Units that disturb the connection. (cheap hoover anyone )

*"with my laptop and pings are perfectly fine"* = inbuild antenna better than your cheap one?


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## GorbazTheDragon (Sep 18, 2014)

Wire, wire, wire, wire, wire.

Please, if you take online gaming even mildly seriously, just use a Cat6


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## Jetster (Sep 18, 2014)

I would go right to a powerline if you can't directly wire. two floors will always have latency


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## Athlon2K15 (Sep 19, 2014)

The two replies above me are spot on. Wireless is terrible for gaming especially with you being so far from the router. The D-Link 600Mbps Powerline adapters are a good option, I use those to connect my garage to my network.


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## remixedcat (Sep 19, 2014)

Just DON'T go for a range extender. They HALVE your B/W and reduce overall performance due to the need to co-channel.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Sep 19, 2014)

In my experience powerline has been unreliable at times. I use a 15m cable at home, the latency is <1ms consistently. I get ~10-20ms extra in games when on wireless. Next to the router or in my room (1 concrete, one board wall)


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## SaltyFish (Sep 19, 2014)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JVHDAPA/?tag=tec06d-20

You'll want something like that. Just stick it between the antenna and the wifi antenna port. I had similar problems with my own wifi connection. Got an amplifier and solved my connection stability issues. The only downside is that the amplifier requires its own power supply so wiring issues may arise.


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## Aquinus (Sep 19, 2014)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> In my experience powerline has been unreliable at times. I use a 15m cable at home, the latency is <1ms consistently. I get ~10-20ms extra in games when on wireless. Next to the router or in my room (1 concrete, one board wall)


That depends on your signal. My Powerline adapter gives me a ping of 2ms on a good day and 9ms on a bad day. My wi-fi access point is nearby so my wi-fi pings are almost always <1ms.

I have two Netgear AV500s, it will say I have ~170mbps up and down in the utility, but I can do a speed test and get something like this when on wi-fi I get 115mbps down on average. I only use it for Linux as my USB wi-fi isn't supported. I'm eventually going to run CAT6, but there are a lot of considerations before I can do that because it involves other things as well.







A wave-guide antenna could be better depending on the wiring in the OP's house.


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## remixedcat (Sep 19, 2014)

I got two amped pla2 and two netgear homeplugs and the fastest I've ever gotten was 12Mbytes/sec (average 8Mbytes/sec when over wireless N I get 15 and .ac I get 25Mbytes/sec


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## GorbazTheDragon (Sep 20, 2014)

Hmm, must be the crappy router I had, or just that the laptop wifi adapter has a high latency. But, either way, even with expensive setups, there is nothing consumer grade that beats ethernet.


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## Aquinus (Sep 20, 2014)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> Hmm, must be the crappy router I had, or just that the laptop wifi adapter has a high latency. But, either way, even with expensive setups, there is nothing consumer grade that beats ethernet.


5Ghz with a full signal has latency almost as good at ethernet in my case, less bandwidth, sure, but that's the price you pay for wireless anyways. For a lot of people, wireless is fine but not for everyone.

There can be limitations to running ethernet cabling depending on your place of residence which is why wi-fi is a good option for most typical users.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 20, 2014)

If your home has a narrow ceiling or is 2 story you have to punch through 2x4s and go through firebrakes sometimes. Which is ridiculous to dtherwise a external cat5 wrap might be only solution unless if you have a smart panel home with ethernet/telephone jacks in each room.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Sep 20, 2014)

Or do it ghetto style with cables lying on the floor


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 20, 2014)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> Or do it ghetto style with cables lying on the floor



Put a piece of carpet over it or do a internal door/ceiling wrap lol


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## Aquinus (Sep 20, 2014)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> Or do it ghetto style with cables lying on the floor


You obviously don't have a young child running around like I do.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 20, 2014)

Yup trip hazard to the kid and damage to the ethernet adapters...


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## GorbazTheDragon (Sep 20, 2014)

I have 15m of cable over a 5m run, so 5 meters on each end in case someone snags it.

I do have "little kids" as in my 7 year old sister and 10 year old brother running around. But they are probably old enough to understand what a cable is and that you should not trip on it or pull it.


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## Aquinus (Sep 20, 2014)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> I have 15m of cable over a 5m run, so 5 meters on each end in case someone snags it.
> 
> I do have "little kids" as in my 7 year old sister and 10 year old brother running around. But they are probably old enough to understand what a cable is and that you should not trip on it or pull it.



My 2 year old daughter don't know that and I would have to run a cable across the living room and into my office, which is a problem in my case. Not to mention that I think it would be an eye sore, but that's me. At some point in the future I'm just going to pull up floor boards in the attic and run the cabling through the wall but I don't need that yet.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Sep 20, 2014)

Well it's a choice about what you are willing to sacrifice in the end, and it depends on each person/situation.


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## remixedcat (Sep 20, 2014)

most of my stuff is wireless cept my main desktop. i also got a smart tv and it's wireless too. most of my stuff is 5Ghz. I even have my aruba aps set to "force 5Ghz" with the band steering.


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## Aquinus (Sep 20, 2014)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> Well it's a choice about what you are willing to sacrifice in the end, and it depends on each person/situation.


Very true but, with a full signal on 5Ghz you're not sacrificing too much. At least I can use all of my bandwidth. I can't do that with the power line adapter. All in all, the only time it would benefit (right now) would be transfers between my tower and my server. I can deal with 150Mbps in each direction. Although if Comcast bumps their speeds again, I'll have a lot more incentive to run and invest in the bulk CAT-6 to do it. It would be a project for the spring if I did that relatively soon.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 22, 2014)

The Powerline vs. Wireless debate is tough.  I will say, that the success of either depends greatly on each individual situation.  There are times where wireless will be better and other times where powerline will be better.  A lot of it comes down to how good of a wireless signal you can get.  For example:  I was just at a client, their barn, which they converted to a guest house for their son, is far enough away from their house that they only get 1-2 bars of wireless N signal from the router in the house.  And even though it says the connection is 150Mb/s, transfer rates are ~1MB/s and pings are super high and there is pretty high packet loss(over 15%).  I plugged a 500Mbps powerline kit in, one end right next to the router in their basement and the other end in the barn and it works so much better.  Transfers are now in the 9-10MB/s range and pings are back down to a normal level with no packet loss.

However, the reverse can also be the case.  If you have a good wireless N signal(5GHz or 2.4GHz), it will generally outperform the powerline adapters.  Though I'm still waiting to try the new powerline adapters that basically use the MIMO technology to see if they stand any chance against a good wireless signal.




remixedcat said:


> No 5Ghz tho on that adapter...



In my experience, 5GHz is great in an open area,  but the signal fades very quickly when it has to pass through walls.  So in most home settings, 5GHz is useless unless the router is in the same room with you.  So getting an adapter that is 2.4GHz only for a desktop 2 floors away from the router isn't a problem, IMO.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 22, 2014)

The 200 Meg Power Adapters can handle Uverse Wired Boxes and those who want their pc in a spot with out a tv in area.

There is this for spare coax jacks in a home


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001N85NMI/?tag=tec06d-20 (I believe they use the latest hpna standard)


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## GorbazTheDragon (Sep 23, 2014)

Just a bump for the cable hype 

IMO there is no point in spending a lot on wireless adapters. As long as you don't get some full on el cheapo thing you'll not be losing out much.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 23, 2014)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> Just a bump for the cable hype
> 
> IMO there is no point in spending a lot on wireless adapters. As long as you don't get some full on el cheapo thing you'll not be losing out much.



fyi i worked in telecom triplay svc. Uverse tv boxes could use coax (Latest hpna standard) or ethernet. What was interesting is you could use a coax to ethernet adapter to run a pc off of the coax line. If your home has plentiful coax jacks but no cat5 it can cost alot to have those lines ran especially in a 2 story home if you attempt wall drops.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> There is this for spare coax jacks in a home
> 
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001N85NMI/?tag=tec06d-20 (I believe they use the latest hpna standard)


Wait, so $1200 for "up to 270Mbps"...why would anyone even consider this as an option?!?


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 23, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> Wait, so $1200 for "up to 270Mbps"...why would anyone even consider this as an option?!?



There are several other makers of them, that was just 1 example of coax to ethernet adapters


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## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> There are several other makers of them, that was just 1 example of coax to ethernet adapters



Yeah, I looked a few up on amazon.  Still a little price though for only 250-270Mbps.  500Mbps powerline adapters are still cheaper from what I can see, and 1000Mbps powerline adapters are only $130 for a pair.


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## Aquinus (Sep 23, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> Yeah, I looked a few up on amazon.  Still a little price though for only 250-270Mbps.  500Mbps powerline adapters are still cheaper from what I can see, and 1000Mbps powerline adapters are only $130 for a pair.



My 500Mbps powerline adapter claims to be connected at 200Mbit up and down and a speed test shows how I only get like 57Mbps. While it works, it definitely can't utilize my 105Mbit connection or even achieve the speeds it claims it can reach. Interesting solution but I think they vastly overestimate how much bandwidth you really get out of it.





5Ghz wi-fi will double my download speed versus the powerline adapter and the Netgears say I have a solid connection on the powerline, not quite sure what to think.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2014)

Aquinus said:


> My 500Mbps powerline adapter claims to be connected at 200Mbit up and down and a speed test shows how I only get like 57Mbps. While it works, it definitely can't utilize my 105Mbit connection or even achieve the speeds it claims it can reach. Interesting solution but I think they vastly overestimate how much bandwidth you really get out of it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Like I said before, it all depends on the situation.

In my home, the 500Mb/s powerline is faster than 5GHz WirelessN, but slower than 2.4GHz WirelessN.  But none of the 3 will take advantage of my 100Mb/s internet connection. I have a pair of the 1000Mb/s powerline adapter on order, I hope they at least get close to 100Mb/s.  The old powerline adapters only use one of the 3 wires in the outlet to transmit data, the new ones are supposed to use two wires.  We'll see.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 23, 2014)

Theres a distance limit on powerline adapters. Also they cannot be plugged into a powerstrip they work best if they are on same breaker too.


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## Jetster (Sep 23, 2014)

With power-line adapters you have to look at the specs carefully. First you want a gigabyte port. Your not going to get 500mb with a 10/100 connector. Many of the manufactures do this. The others part is your house and its wiring or rather its panel. A 3 phase cross over will cut your stream %50. To cross one breaker you will loose about 20% So if you have a 25Mb line and its going threw a 3 phase switch it will end up about 8Mb. Which would be about the same as wireless. However latency would be much less. Now these test are based on results I have and my limited education on electrical. Your results my very


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## remixedcat (Sep 23, 2014)

500mbps is the backplane speed. 

I got two rated at 500 but they max out at 232 even just a room away on a good circuit.


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## Aquinus (Sep 23, 2014)

Jetster said:


> With power-line adapters you have to look at the specs carefully. First you want a gigabyte port. Your not going to get 500mb with a 10/100 connector. Many of the manufactures do this. The others part is your house and its wiring or rather its panel. A 3 phase cross over will cut your stream %50. To cross one breaker you will loose about 20% So if you have a 25Mb line and its going threw a 3 phase switch it will end up about 8Mb. Which would be about the same as wireless. However latency would be much less. Now these test are based on results I have and my limited education on electrical. Your results my very


It has a 1gbps port on it.


remixedcat said:


> 500mbps is the backplane speed.
> 
> I got two rated at 500 but they max out at 232 even just a room away on a good circuit.


Yes, but the utility will say something like this:



Windows will say this:



...and SpeedTest.net will say this:




...and when I slap my USB wi-fi adapter in, I get this:



...and this on SpeedTest.net





I know that wi-fi is measured as full agregate bandwidth, so in reality it can't do more than 150Mbps in either direction, the power line adapter just doesn't make sense. Either that or Netgear's utility is full of it and it's marketing BS but I've never seen the speeds that it claims I should be getting.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 23, 2014)

Drawback to wifi is spectrum congestion and they can be jammed out eventually. The powerline adapters work as an interim cheap and convenient solution just like wifi without having to go through an expense of running lines.


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## Aquinus (Sep 23, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> Drawback to wifi is spectrum congestion and they can be jammed out eventually. The powerline adapters work as an interim cheap and convenient solution just like wifi without having to go through an expense of running lines.


Very true. Fortunately I live next to a park and on an intersection of a street, so I only see the tenant below me's wi-fi which is only on 2.4Ghz, the router is on "auto" for channel so I'm assuming it's picking the least congested one. As for 5Ghz, hardly anyone near me has it, so I take full advantage of channel 161. Both bands where I live are pretty wide open.

I should also note my wi-fi AP is in the opposite room. The signal is cross a room, going through a wall and a couch to get to the AP. Very little signal loss. I suspect the overall range of 5Ghz is more limited as higher frequency waves tend to attenuate faster than lower frequency waves.

On a side note: My gateway was acting up yesterday. Today I diagnosed it down to my trusty Radeon HD 2600 XT failing.  One of the few GDDR4 video cards to ever make it to production... I threw the GeForce 8600 GTS I got from Norton in a crunching rig a while back into it instead, not like it's doing anything with video being a gateway.


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## remixedcat (Sep 23, 2014)

The numbers I posted were tests with LAN Speed Test.


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## Aquinus (Sep 23, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> The numbers I posted were tests with LAN Speed Test.


Copying over Samba or SSH makes no difference, the download speed I got in the speed test is what I get on the LAN too. The simple fact is that they're overstating the speed they claim I have.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 23, 2014)

Your gateway as in a pc or a modem, you got me a little lossed there.





Aquinus said:


> Very true. Fortunately I live next to a park and on an intersection of a street, so I only see the tenant below me's wi-fi which is only on 2.4Ghz, the router is on "auto" for channel so I'm assuming it's picking the least congested one. As for 5Ghz, hardly anyone near me has it, so I take full advantage of channel 161. Both bands where I live are pretty wide open.
> 
> I should also note my wi-fi AP is in the opposite room. The signal is cross a room, going through a wall and a couch to get to the AP. Very little signal loss. I suspect the overall range of 5Ghz is more limited as higher frequency waves tend to attenuate faster than lower frequency waves.
> 
> On a side note: My gateway was acting up yesterday. Today I diagnosed it down to my trusty Radeon HD 2600 XT failing.  One of the few GDDR4 video cards to ever make it to production... I threw the GeForce 8600 GTS I got from Norton in a crunching rig a while back into it instead, not like it's doing anything with video being a gateway.


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## Aquinus (Sep 23, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> Your gateway as in a pc or a modem, you got me a little lossed there.


Gateway, as in a PC that is acting as my router + some.

I started a thread dedicated to discussing home network setups, I described mine there as well.
Discussing home networking - What does your network look like?


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 24, 2014)

Hey thx for that. I was thinking  a gateway as a RG (Residential Gateway-Modem) but its your server. But to get to it the 2000 series were the only series to use Gddr4  i believe. N yeah my grandfather had a 2400 give up pretty quickly.



Aquinus said:


> Gateway, as in a PC that is acting as my router + some.
> 
> I started a thread dedicated to discussing home network setups, I described mine there as well.
> Discussing home networking - What does your network look like?


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