Connecing to a non-wireless router?

I am going to be moving in with a friend shortly and they dont have a wireless router, and rather then disturbing their set up, I was wondering if their was some kind of adapter or something I could plug into their router to feed my wireless laptop.

This way I dont have a wire running all over their house, or buy a new router and go through that.

 

It's called an access point and they cost just about the same as a router.

Routers are trivially inexpensive. $20- will get you a serviceable one.

 

Why not just get a cheap wireless router? Just plug the wireless router's WAN port to the non-wireless router's lan port and you can browse the internet wirelessly.

 

That's not going to work. The WAN port on a router is for the outside interface, ie, the IP address of the ISP. Running a cable from the LAN port of a functioning router to the WAN port of another router isn't going to provide internet access through the 2nd router.

What the OP needs to do is either get a Wireless Access Point, or use the 2nd router as a Wireless Access Point. To use the 2nd router as an AP, you'd connect it via a LAN port from the 1st router to a LAN port on the 2nd router. (Not the WAN port) Configure the LAN on the 2nd router to be on the same internal subnet as the 1st router, and use the IP address of the 1st router as the default gateway.

Or use a WAP configured the same way. The difference between the WAP and the full router is that the WAP lacks a WAN interface...unneeded in this scenario.

 

so if i just say buy something like this http://www.thriftycomputer.com/product/Netgear-WG602-Wireless-Access-Point.html

and plug it into their router, it will feed my laptop wirelessly?

 

That product will work. It might require some setup depending on how the current network is configured, but it's easy to do. You basically need to configure the LAN settings on the WAP to match the current LAN. If the current LAN has a DHCP server (on the router itself or otherwise) then you ought to be able to set the WAP to get an address via DHCP and basically plug and go. Worst case is that you need to manually configure an IP address for the WAP, but again that's easy. You should of course log into the WAP (via the web interface) and set up security for the wireless...WEP, WPA, or WPA2 depending on what your laptop supports. If it's fairly current then it should be able to connect WPA2. If it's a fossil then you may need to use WEP.

Again, it's easy to set this up. If the included instructions can't get you up and running, then surely someone here will be able to work you through it once you have it.

 

Im not sure what the above are on about but.

You can connect a wireless router to the router already in place. The only thing that needs to be changed for it to work properly is the ip address the router is using a common default is 192.168.0.1 or 1.1 and while you can just do 192.168.2.1 or something I usually go for 10.0.0.1.

Got a call one day from a friend when verizon replaced their dsl modem and the linksys i had setup for them wasnt providing internet access, told them what I just told you and its been working since. The DSL modem they have now is also a wireless + 4 port and then connecting to that is the Linksys which a pair of high gain antenna's for range.