Possibly naive question about wireless routers

When a wireless router is used, is it feasible to connect my main computer as a wired connection and only turn on the wireless feature in the times I'm using my laptop elsewhere in the home? I'd prefer to not have wireless going full-time, and would feel most secure doing any financial work on a wired conection.

 

It definitely is. You can always have your wireless configured, but turned off on your router (usually, in all the models ive dealth with)

If you have no annoyances with having to turn it on when you need wireless via the main wired computer, than it works : )

 

like gusto5 says, no problem. the only annoying thing would be that every time you wanted to connect wirelessly, you would have to (1) wire into the router, (2) log in to the router, (3) manually change the router to broadcast wirelessly, (4) connect wirelessly, (5) surf, (6) disconnect wirelessly, (7) connect with a wire, (8) log in to the router, (9) disable wireless.

(you may be able to do steps 8 and 9 while connected wirelessly, but i think most new routers do not allow any admin changes while connected wirelessly)

as long as you're cool with those steps, no problem.

 

Thats my main annoyance doing so, I wish there is some way to connect to the router from my laptop without the actual isp broadband being turned on in wifi.

I hope that makes sense to the rest of you. lol


I only do that when I'm not using wifi for a while, like a weekend or longer trip. But to do that daily would be a pain.

 

Oh, so it wouldn't be possible to keep the main computer plugged in all the time and only switch on wireless when I'm going to uise the laptop (without having to unplug / re-plug etc)? The log-in I would expect, but I'm surprised there would be more to it than that, once the initial config was done.

 

your router is either broadcasting a wireless signal (or allowing/disallowing wireless connections) or it isn't. the way to differentiate is by logging into the router to make the change manually.

if you think you can turn your on notebook's wireless card and that will activate your router's wireless capability, then you're mistaken.

if you have a computer always connected via ethernet cable, then you will just use that computer to login to the router to make the changes.

 

Ah, okay. I was hoping it would be as simple as flipping an on/off switch on the router itself.

So, it can be done through software only. That's not too awful. Is it simply a matter of turning it on in the software, then turning it off again in the software afterwards (no physical plugging and unplugging)?