You may some day come across the rare situation of temporarily needing an extra wireless router. I can’t really think of a good example, but I know that I encountered such a situation yesterday. I decided I would write up an article as it may prove useful to others that may find themselves in a similar situation some day.
I had a PC lying around that was still quite usable, but I only had one monitor. Eventually I decided it would be worthwhile to purchase a second monitor so that my wife could make use of the computer. We also decided we would put it into a separate room, so it would not be located adjacent to the other computer and Internet connection. In addition to the monitor, I also ordered a wireless router, wireless keyboard, and a wireless mouse to use with the machine.
Well, as it so happened, the monitor arrived in a separate shipment before the router and peripherals did. After I had nearly completed hooking everything up, my wife informed me that she wanted to get online with it to buy some music for her iPod. Of course, this PC was the home machine for the iPod. I really didn’t feel like moving everything back to the office, hook it all up so she could get online and get her music, then move it back to the permanent home. I then had a revelation and realized I could use my laptop as a wireless router.
Diagram for Laptop as a Router
Here are the basic requirements for using your laptop as a wireless router:
- A laptop with a wireless network device as well as an ethernet device (duh!)
- A wireless router that is hard-wired to your Internet connection
- A hub or router for connecting to the laptop and other machines (alternatively, you could use a crossover cable)
- At least two ethernet cables, one for the laptop and one for other machines
I was fortunate I had an old hub stashed away within the depths of my gadget closet and had plenty of unused ethernet cables lying around. Basically all you need to do is:
- Connect the laptop to the hub via one of the ethernet cables
- Connect the computer(s) to the hub via the other ethernet cable(s)
- Connect the laptop to the wireless hub with the laptop’s wireless device (you are probably already doing this)
- Set up Internet connection sharing on the laptop to share the wireless device
- Launch the control panel
- Go to your network connections
- Right-click on the wireless device and go to properties
- Click the Advanced tab
- In the Internet Connection Sharing section, click the check box that says Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection
- Click OK
If you use a crossover cable instead of a hub, you would connect the ethernet port on the computer directly to the one on the laptop.
Network Connections Window
Internet Connection Sharing
If you are using Windows XP:
That’s all there is to it! This will also work fine with a Mac or Vista laptop. I don’t have either, so I’m not at liberty to provide step-by-step instructions and screen shots. The physical setup would be exactly the same. You would just have to take different steps to set up Internet connection sharing. Just be sure that you set it up to share the connection on the wireless device.
hola saludos me podrias decir si esto funciona con un modem de 56k
Sí, es posible. La computadora con el módem de 56k también necesita una conexión de network para conectar con el wireless router. Compartas la conexión del Internet en el módem de 56k con el network. Conecta la tarjeta de network en la conexión de Internet (enlace ascendente) del router. Todo lo demás en la configuración sería la misma.
wow..great idea! I think I will try this at my home 🙂
You probably ment, you ordered a wireless network card? Why else would u use a laptop as a router. If you already had one, right?
(and thanx for this article. I had a lan party down in the basement yesterday. So I brought down my asus eee, connected to my wireless router and viola. Thank you.
No I had ordered a wireless router that I was going to install DD-WRT onto to use as a wireless bridge. Essentially, I was going to use it in the same manner as one would use a wireless network card. If you're curious as to what I did exactly, you can check out a MakeUseOf tutorial I wrote on turning an old router into a wireless bridge.
Wow.. very interesting.. i m impressed.
OMG…. i just though this morning if my laptop can be wireless sharing with laptop. its really late for me to know this but im happy that i know my laptop can share it with other. thanks for the information ^^, i'll come often so i'll will not miss anything again.
If you use a crossover ethernet cable directly between the wireless laptop and computer you can don't need the hub
That's a very good point, thanks! I'll update the post and mention that.
On Windows Vista you would access “Wireless Internet Connection Properties” by Opening control panel, selecting “Network and Internet” and then “Manage Wireless Networks.” Above all of the available wireless networks is a button that says “Adapter Properties.” After that its basically the same.
J.W.Kent PhD
in the advanced tab there is windows firewall but there is not internet connection sharing please help me what to do?
If you don't see Internet connection sharing, it's because you only have one network adapter. For this to work, the laptop needs both an Ethernet adapter and wireless adapter.
I'm so love this blog, already bookmarked it! Thanks.
Hi guys 🙂
Thanks for the post, really great one! Everything that i need! But.. got one question regarding this thred.
When you say that i can use a hud/router. Can i use my wireless router for this purpouse? Like not use a cable to my other computer that will get the internet from the laptop. But use the wireless signals to get internet from the wireless router.
Is that possible?
Thanks 🙂
If you have a wireless router, then you wouldn't need to be using your laptop as a wireless router.
My acer laptop and hp desktop both are running xp. That was not my problem with the direct connect method that uses my acer as the hub. when I check the allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection, and click ok the error message that came up said “Internet Connection Sharing be cannot enabled. A LAN connection is already configured with the IP address that is required for automatic IP addressing.
You are probably using 192.168.0.1 as the IP of your network adapter.
Windows uses this IP for ICS, so you'll need to set it to something else
(such as 192.168.1.1).
thank you thank you thank you.
This is exactly what I needed to know to connect a POS terminal server to the network via my laptop
Awesome dude, should be helpful for the LAN party today
Glad to help, have fun!
I really don't get this… The title is “Use a Laptop as a Wirelles Router” and one of the basic requirements is a …wirelles router? :))
You need a main wireless router to transmit a signal for the main Internet
connection. The laptop behaves as a wireless router for additional
computers that do not have wireless adapters to connect to the main wireless
router. It's good for connecting desktop computers in other rooms that do
not have wireless adapters.
A wireless LAN party is a great example why you might want to set this up.
Everyone has desktop computers which take up a lot of space, so they need
to set up all of them in a dining room. However, the dining room has no
internet connection or wireless router. With my configuration you could
use a single laptop as the wireless router for all of the desktop computers
in the LAN party.
I’m having a problem with this, as I am connecting my laptop via HARDWIRE to the DSL router, then wanting to broadcast a wireless signal to connect my android smartphone…
I really don't get this… The title is “Use a Laptop as a Wirelles Router” and one of the basic requirements is a …wirelles router? :))
You need a main wireless router to transmit a signal for the main Internet
connection. The laptop behaves as a wireless router for additional
computers that do not have wireless adapters to connect to the main wireless
router. It's good for connecting desktop computers in other rooms that do
not have wireless adapters.
A wireless LAN party is a great example why you might want to set this up.
Everyone has desktop computers which take up a lot of space, so they need
to set up all of them in a dining room. However, the dining room has no
internet connection or wireless router. With my configuration you could
use a single laptop as the wireless router for all of the desktop computers
in the LAN party.
Hi,
I use linux, how can I go about…. (I know that I will need a crossover cable since I don’t have a hub)
I just need help in linux because I don’t know much about the O.S.
I am using Ubuntu 10.04, thanks!
It’s been some time since I’ve used Ubuntu, so I’m not really sure. I’m not
sure if Ubuntu 10.04 has a way to do this via the desktop interface, but I
wouldn’t be surprised if it does. I would suggest checking the Ubuntu
forums for information on bridging wireless and wired network adapters.
No problem. Thanks for coming back and providing the link to the info on
the Ubuntu solution.
Hi, i have problem connecting my nokia x6 to my laptop through wifi, i did all the settings in my laptop but when i want to brouse internet on my mobile it shows invalid server name, but some times the same setting work.
Plz help me how to tackle it.
Thanks
Are you trying to use it as a wireless router?
yes.
If it works sometimes, it’s most likely that you have a weak signal to the
main wireless router.
hi, im trying to do this using a home hub 3, but every time i plug it in, my computer decides to try connect through the hub instead, can you help? thanks.
From what I see online about the Home Hub 3, although it’s name would indicate otherwise, it’s actually a router. A hub doesn’t provide any routing capability at all, it only provides a means for computers to connect directly to each other via an ethernet connection. I’m not sure if there is any way to use a Home Hub without any routing.
One thing that may help prevent computers from connecting to it, would be to disable the DHCP server on the Home Hub if that is possible to do. Without DHCP and using a different DHCP server or manually assigning IPs, the Home Hub should function very much like a hub.
From what I see online about the Home Hub 3, although it’s name would indicate otherwise, it’s actually a router. A hub doesn’t provide any routing capability at all, it only provides a means for computers to connect directly to each other via an ethernet connection. I’m not sure if there is any way to use a Home Hub without any routing.
Is there anyway to do this without the hub or crossover cable?
I’m guessing i cant just run the ethernet cable from my laptop to my desktop…
Yes can we do this without any external hub, because in laptop there is one or more ethernet plug in port / hub.
The password and security settings would need to be set on the main wireless router. Then you set the security settings on the wireless laptop to match those on the main wireless router.
i have a smart tv connected via lan to my laptop, my laptop connects to internet via WIFI, lan and WIFI on laptop are bridged, both connect to the internet and each others shares etc, my PS3 is conected to internet via the SAME WIFI and it can connect to the internet but not access anything on the shares/home network etc? can anyone advise me how i can get local network access on my PS3 with this configuration, thanks