Doesn't Centrino have built in wireless on motherboard? Yes it should go
thru wall, about150 feet.

"Erik Hegeman" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have a home network server which has some shared folders on it's
harddisk
and a shared printer. It also shares the internet connection. It has two
10/100 mbps NIC's (actually they're integrated in the Asus A7N8X-deluxe
mainboard), one of them connects to the wired LAN (actually it connects to
one other computer using a crossover cable) and one of them connects to
the
DSL modem/router.

Anyway, I am thinking of buying a laptop with Centrino technology with
integrated WLAN, and I am not sure how to connect this to the existing
LAN.

The cheapest woul probably be buying a PCI WLAN card for the server and
setting up an ad-hoc connection. Sweex seems to offer a nice PCI card with
a
relatively large antenna (http://www.sweex.com/product.asp?pid=223, don't
know if the 802.11G card also has such an antenna) However, I have no idea
how far the signal will go without an access point. I would like it to go
at
least 6 meters and through one concrete wall, but it doesn't have to be
fast
at that distance (1 mbps would be enough). Buying an access point will
probably be better, but they are relatively expensive and of course I
don't
want to throw away money.

Does anyone have experience with the Sweex PCI WLAN cards (or other cards
with good antennas) and/or can anyone tell me what will be the range of an
ad-hoc wireless LAN connection? Or should I really buy an access point?

Thanks,
Erik