I'm looking for advice on which, if any, of the listed routers would be best for me to link 2 PC's and an xbox. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and I can obtain one of these for free!!

BELKIN B5DUK035
NETGEAR WGR614UK
BELKIN F5D7231UK4
NETGEAR DGB111GUK
BELKIN F5D9012UK
BELKIN F5D7632UK4A
BELKIN F5D9016UK
BELKIN F5D9017UK
BELKIN F5D9013UK

I would be glad of any help.

What's a router?

I was expecting something a little more sensible from you Mr H, silly me.

the AA do a good route planner,
http://www.theaa.com/travelwatch/planner_main.jsp

hope its more help than mr h

I was helping Mr R who was obviously out of his depth in a technical forum.

Yep.

Any of the Belkin ones really, Just check the specs see if it has at least 4 ports in the back! Leaving you a spare one!

There fairly straight forward to setup aswell!

Modem (modulation/demodulation) connects to ADSL (broadband) signal through the phone line or cable ----> router then 'routes' connection to where you want it. For example - Port 1, route to desktop. Port 2, route to XBox, WIFI port, convert signal to wireless.

Some units are combined modem/router.

I've got a little white Netgear box plugged into the phone line but not into the pc but it makes my tinterweb work.

You sir are thick as shit.

Who?

you sir.

Ta.

Why?

Cos.

Imagine you're building a corridor and that people can only come into it one end. When they enter this corridor there are several exits. Respective people can choose which door to exit and they can get out of any of them. Now just because someone chooses exit A doesn't mean that the other exits suddenly lock. They are all usable or some of them or none of them.

Thats essentially how your router works. Signal in ---> signal splits -----> signal can be accessed by any or all of the exit points.

I know that it's late on a Friday night, but I've got to ask this question, maybe I'll get a reply in the morning when someone has sobered up. I received my free router in the post the other day, left it to the junior Billingham Poolies to sort it out, and came home to find it set up, but only to the one PC. Apparently we need a 'bridge' to be able to link the router to my second PC, and the XBox! Is this right, a 'bridge' has been ordered, but I'm no further forward.

It's a bloody strange router what doesn't route. Doesn't it have a series of ethernet sockets in the back? Is it wireless?

It has 4, 5 if you include the 1 for the modem, sockets on the back, 1 of which is being used to connect to the PC next to it, which I had previously connected directly to the modem. So I am no better off at the moment than I was without the router. The box does say it is a Wireless G+ Router.

So it's a bog standard router. Normally that's all you need.
The rest is just configuration (for the PCs its prolly "Network Set-up Wizard" or summat like that in Microsoft speak).
The router should have a built in web interface to let you configure it. It'll have a fixed local IP number something like 192.168.0.1 (see documentation) and you just enter that number (in this example http://192.168.0.1) in your Web browser.
Set the mode to DHCP so it assigns local network addresses automatically.
Can be a chew on mind.

up the Luddites!!!!

Whats the brand of router?

As Richard Head said, If you can pop into your web browser http://192.168.0.1/ [Or whatever documentation says] and try assigning DHCP through there it should work

and work to the extent that you can pick it up anywhere in the house!

How did you know I was still having problems with the router Mr Stupoolie? Or did you not notice most of this thread was posted in October?