Turn computer into a hot spot?

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WobblyElvis

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I have a cable modem and that's fine but my wireless router just quit. I have my desk top computer connected to the modem via a cat 5 cable and it works well. The desktop has a wireless card, can I somehow connect other devices to the internet via the wireless card in the desktop? Windows 7.
I'm not so good at this computer business.
thanks for any help.
 
Replace router with another $20 dollar router.

You can buy them at walmart and they are pretty much plug and play.

I may get beat up on this, but the cheapo belkin routers work fine for most folks, unless you have a super high speed connection.
 
Those routers also act as a hardware firewall. I would not direct attach a PC to the internet for the purpose of sharing an internet connection.

Freely available packages such as backtrack linux and megasploit allow internet users to fingerprint your OS, pick and exploit and attack your machine.

I sat in a office and watched our security guy do it in 15 minutes.
 
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+1 on the $20 router. TP-Link makes stuff that is pretty good performance and reliability for the price.

If you have an extra PC (with wired and wireless hardware) you can boot up Backtrack or OpenWRT x86 to press it into service as a router. But like the others said I would not connect a Windows machine direct to the internet.
 
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I am hesitant to buy another router because my son is coming home in 4 weeks and he has an extra one. I'll probably just buy a $20 router next time I go out.
 
If you get the tp-link you can do all sorts of stunts like make it a 2nd hotspot for a far corner of your house etc. If you're into home IT management you can reflash it with DD-WRT and get more toys to play with.
 
I agree, replace the router.

As for what is the best cheap router, that's not an easy question, here's my take on it.

Every wifi router on Amazon has some bad reviews. Why? Not every wifi router works with every wifi device well, some hardly at all. For example, I had a TPLink that worked great until I turned my laptop on. Then it would immediately lock out my wife's phone and my daughter's laptop (which, by the way, were on 2.4GHz while my laptop was on 5GHz). I replaced the wifi card in my laptop (an Intel card) and it made no difference.

Yet other people were very, very happy with that cheap TPLink. Why? It happened to work well with THEIR devices. I dropped $130 on an ASUS and it works with everything, all the time, and I never reboot it.
 
Okay now this is embarrassing. I'm the original poster. The "Cable Modem" I have is supplied by the internet provider and has been changed a couple of times over the years as the system is upgraded or whatever.

I go and buy a $20 wireless router and go to install it and I'm looking at the back of the modem with a flashlight. I find it has 4 ports like a router. I also see it has a tiny button labeled enable wireless. It's a modem/wireless router. I pushed the button.
 
I refuse to use the cable provider's WiFi. The equipment is horrid cheap, poor range, often 2.4GHz only, it keeps stomping on my neighbor's channels (and thus their channels on mine), and it offers my bandwidth free to anyone with the provider's account. No thank you.

They also LIED to me on the phone that I had to using their latest DVR equipment, but that was just a lie. I went right back to using my SurfBoard and my own Wifi and what do you know the DVR system works fine.

Of course if you're paying $20 for a wifi router, you may not notice the difference.
 
This isn't 2001, wireless routers are now $15 used instead of $120, and ethernet hubs are no longer $150 a piece.
 
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