Wireless Router Question

[PH]

Hopefully someone can answer my query.

I've recently moved house and changed my broadband provider to Virgin. I'm looking to buy a wireless router for my PC and consoles. My PC will be right next to the cable modem and wireless router so I will be connecting it to the router with a cable. The consoles are in another room and will be connected wirelessly.

Question : I only want the router to be wireless capable when the consoles are being used. Is it possible to switch off the wireless capabilities of a router when a wireless connection is not needed (in my case when I'm only using my PC).

Thanks.

[noobish hat]

You could take the aerial off it... That's what I did when my brother was downstairs using up all the bandwidth on cod4.

[NemesiS]

Why? just out of curiosity.

Do you have kids who play games online while your trying to work.

If so you can turn off the wireless broadcasting by accessing the admin settings on the router, or as the PH said, undo the ariel when your online at the PC.

[smouty]

You could -

1) Add an access point for wireless and turn it off when not needed.
2) Use WPA security, leave it on all the time and use a complicated password.
3) Use homeplugs instead of wireless for your consoles.
4) Get an expensive router such as a Draytek that can enable/disable wireless on a schedule.

I wouldn't remove the aerial as it will probably cause you equipment to fail or have no effect if there is an internal aerial.

[Dirty Sanchez]

Use MAC filtering to only allow the consoles and your PC to connect. Job done.

[PH]

Thanks for the ideas guys. Much appreciated.

[Strolls]

Question : I only want the router to be wireless capable when the consoles are being used. Is it possible to switch off the wireless capabilities of a router when a wireless connection is not needed (in my case when I'm only using my PC).

This is surely unnecessary. The only possibly justified reason for doing this is interference on other devices using the same band (cordless phones & stuff like that). The best thing to do is tell us WHY you would want to do that, and we can explain why it's unnecessary.

Stroller.

[abigsmurf]

The wireless part of things makes up for a minority of power usage I believe it's something like 500mW for a router which is incredibly tiny.

If you're doing it for security, no one's going to break WPA encrpytion anytime soon and they especially won't do it if the wireless connection isn't sending out encrypted packets to machines on the network. WEP is a whole different matter though.

You're not going to be able to automatically turn off the wireless on demand because wireless is an on demand feature in itself. You can turn it off completely in the router settings (192.168.xxx.1) but it's a bit of a bother turning it on and off as you'll need the PC on to do so.

Use MAC filtering to only allow the consoles and your PC to connect. Job done.

Never use mac filtering as a main security measure. MACs aren't encrypted and it's easy for someone to sniff the mac codes of something using a network and spoof it.

[Hohum]

If you purchase a Linksys WRT54GL router, and flash it with the latest tomato firmware (http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato), you can achieve what you're after. The router has a button on the front that is normally used for quick setup of a wireless connection, but after flashing to tomato it can be used for various tasks (and by default it's setup to allow you to toggle wireless access on and off).

[NekoFever]

Use MAC filtering to only allow the consoles and your PC to connect. Job done.

Yeah, you really don't want that as your only protection. It's literally a 30-second job to get around MAC filtering and it's not encrypted either.