Configuring Your Wireless Router

If you have just purchased a wireless router I'm sure you are very eager to get this setup as soon as possible. There are a number of things that you need to do before anything else.  Because of the variety of routers available you will need to sit down and look at the user manual, some of the settings will be specific to your router and you will need to use in order to change the configuration. Make sure you look at this even if you are experienced or think it is on unnecessary.

You will need to locate and the IP address in order for you to access the router's configuration this should be with in the manual. It will read something like 192.168.x.x, which is standard in most routers, but yours may differ slightly so double-check and make sure you have this to happen to hand. Connecting to your router should be done in the initial stages using a category 5 cable or otherwise known as a patch cable which you should have received which your router. The next step is to put the IP address into the address bar on your Internet browser and hit return you should hopefully now have access to the router configuration section.

One of the first steps should be to configure your LAN network. You are looking to make sure that DHCP is setup so it can automatically assign an IP address to any computer that connects to the network. To be honest most wireless routers will have this set up automatically nowadays. Some people choose to set up static IP addresses if you prefer to do this you can change the settings in the configuration on the router itself.

Security on wireless networks is also an issue and you should set this up as soon as you can. The last thing you need is for any unauthorized access onto your network, which could possibly give someone with access to your files and information and also use your bandwidth for your Internet access. There are a number of different types of encryption available and basically what you need to do is select which one you want on the router and then also do the same from your laptop so you can connect. Most people will use WEP, which requires you to enter a 10-character passphrase on to the router.  And make sure you keep note of this because when you connect from your laptop is we'll also ask for this passphrase. The passphrase or password is made of a letter's A-F and numeric 0-9 a sure you have a strong passphrase by combining both numbers and letters in it.

There are also additional security measures where you can setup allow access only by using a MAC address. You will need to consult your manual for full instructions on how to do this. It is not that difficult to setup a wireless router configuration can be done in a few minutes. Once you have an understanding from reading your manual, which of course is specific to your router, you should find it quite simple to set up.