Wireless Home-Office Network

Last week I completed a new wireless Home-Office Network. The goal was to be able to watch HD TV streaming from the Internet and this system works great.

After a failed experiment with a Media Extender, I decided to build a Computer for the family room and have it use a wireless connection to the Internet router in my home office. This family room computer uses a Gigabyte Micro ATX motherboard with an Intel Dual Core 2.8 CPU. It's housed in a Micro case with an EVGA GeForce 9600 GSO video card. I use a DVI to HDMI cable to connect to our 720p Westinghouse 32 TV. I had 2GB RAM and an XP Pro32 OS lying around as extras and I used them too. To connect to the Internet, I used a D-Link DWA-552 Desktop adapter with a ANT24-230 Antenna.

In the home office, I used a D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabyte Router. For our laptops, we use an existing Draft N D-Link adapter. In the picture of the wireless router, you'll see two external hard drives. This is where the media we want to see in the family room is stored. But the streaming video from the Internet works good also. For example, we like to watch TV from Hulu. We're into the Rockford Files right now and the picture and sound quality is very good indeed. Since I've never paid for cable TV, this low cost system seems to work very well for us. Santa will deliver a wireless keyboard and mouse on Christmas. Below is a slide show of the various components.

Oh yea, SolidWorks images look outstanding on our HDTV!

Cheers,
Devon T. Sowell
http://www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

Comments

[Sarah]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sarah

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[Devon T. Sowell]

The DVI to HDMI cable was $24.00

[Devon T. Sowell]

Hey Josh-

I'm canceling my Nexflix.

Let's see: router $149.00 desktop adapters and laptop adapters $89.00ea antenna, $29.95

computer:

motherboard $89.95
cpu $130.00
powersupply $55.00
videocard $89.95
RAM I used left overs
dvd writer/player $29.95
case $49.95
hardrive 320GB $59.95
wireless keyboard, mouse $19.95
OS I used a left over disc

All came from newwegg.com or Frye's electronics.

Cheers,
Devon

[Josh]

awesome setup man. I've been wantingto do something like this. We're watching movies via netflix on the xbox360 and hulu/nbc on the laptop. do you have a list with cost for each item? that would be great... shopping list for christmas :)