Help Choosing Wireless N Bridge for Mac Pro

[jr1441]

Hello,

I have a 2008 Mac Pro that is in an upstairs office of a 238 year old farmhouse with only one cable modem access point, which is of course located in a very inconvenient place downstairs. I have several devices running off of a Linksys x2000 wireless N router from that cable modem with successful coverage all over the house and decent speeds for video streaming and downloading.

I should mention that I am only moderately tech savvy and won't get too technical here.

My Mac Pro desktop does not have a wireless (airport) card and cannot retrieve a wireless signal. Apple doesn't make any wireless adapters that can solve my problem so I've spent the last two days researching both USB adapters and wireless bridges. I've read your WDS articles which were written in 2010 and found them very helpful, but I'm wondering if better connectivity, interoperability and set up exist on the market now for wireless bridges?

I've been researching three that I think might work, but no where does it say anything about being compatible with other products (in this case, the Linksys x2000 router) or with a Mac OS. I am running Lion, 10.7.4.

Here are the three I've been considering. Any guidance from someone more tech savvy than me is greatly appreciated!

Option 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833162029

Option 2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127256

Option 3: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833281005

 

[thiggins]

Wireless bridges, AKA wireless to Ethernet bridges don't require any software to be installed on the client devices. As long as the device supports Ethernet and TCP/IP, it should work.

These bridges also don't require the main router to support WDS. They act like client devices, just with Ethernet connections.

 

[jr1441]

Thank you...

Thank you for the confirmation. Many of the wireless adapters require drivers and some of the wireless bridges I've seen also require drivers and say on the box that they are for Windows OS only.

From what you've said, I understand that to mean that the wireless bridges I've listed should NOT require any sort of driver? Or that the driver should work with any OS?

Am I going in the right direction? Will the wireless bridge solve my problem?

Thanks for your guidance.

 

[thiggins]

Wireless bridges do not require any software to be installed. Some may come with CDs that contain installation aids/wizards. But they are not necessary for operation.

 

[sfx2000]

Well... with your MacPro - Trendnet and Buffalo have some very good solutions going from WiFi to Ethernet - the Buffalo does have a Windows based config package to set up, and I assume the Trendnet does as well.

Borrow a friend's laptop if needed, or use VMWare/Parallels with Windows...

Alternately, considering time money/time spent - just go buy an Airport Extreme card for the Mac Pro and be done with it - they're reasonably priced on eBay... or buy a new one on Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012YYITW/?tag=snbforums-20