Best Buy charge 60.00 to set up wireless?

For those of you that know I had horrible problems with getting my wireless set up. Thought I had it fixed and the Linksys router went out again so I went to best buy to replace it. The guy there told me that kind of router would work fine but he recommended a stronger router. I ended up buying Belkin F5D8230-4 Wireless 802.11x Pre-N Router. I did tons of research on routers and I was the one who decided with the Belkin - he had nothing to do with that. I had to order it as they were out of it in the store and it should be here tomorrow. The guy there told me it is so difficult to set up wireless that he has people come in that after 3 months they were still having problems. He said I should have their "Geek Squad" come out for $60.00 and set it up for me. I told him no thank you - I had my own geek squad to help if I needed it - LOL. Obviously so many here have wireless set up he isn't right in telling me it is SO HARD to get it right, is he? Hope everyone is having a good day.
Annie

Annie,
OMFG! Good call on turning him down. Geeksquad is a rip off of the highest order! Listen, you bought a Belkin. Use their tech support. Give them a call if you need help. i've not yet seen the interface for the new Pre-N routers, but knowing belkin, Annie, honestly I'd be amazed if you COULDNT get it set up. First thing I'd do if I were you is when you get that box open, look for the setup POSTER. Thats right.. a whole huge POSTER. They usually give you this big fold out poster that is VERY well written and clear. It also has their tech support number on it.

I've had NUMEROUS calls... ( my logs in bluephone elite go back 2 years and it shows 37 different calls to Belkin, not counting my onsite calls) to belkin's tech line. They have never had a problem walking myself or a customer through setups. Great thing about belkin like I said before was that they DO support Macs and do support setting up a mixed network.

Between Belkin, myself and the rest of the guys here I'd be amazed if you took longer than an hour to get things setup. I tell you what, I'll send you my contact info for IM and such if you need help.

I do want to make sure I'm seeing this right.

1. You have a DSL modem going to >
2. Belkin Router>
3. Hooked up to a Windows PC via a network cable **network cables are also called ETHERNET or CAT5 or CAT5E**>
4. You have a Macbook that you want to hook up via wireless

If thats all right, let me know.

Basically here's what i tell my customers who do this.

Get the box opened. Pull out the paperwork and all the parts.
In the box you will have 3 physical parts to use.
a. Router
b. power supply for router
c. 1 network cable

Ok now you want to get the poster open and just read it for a minute. Read the whole thing so that you know what to expect. If you read the whole thing first before wading into it, you're less likely to have problems.

Once you get it pulled out, what I recommend is making sure you have all your settings for your DSL provider. That will usually be things like your user name and password/ ppoe settings/ server and DNS numbers, etc...

Like I said, dont hesitate to give belkin a call, they'll more than likely know just what you need.

Anyways, in terms of setting up wireless, theres one piece of advice I give people. Put a password on your wireless. The type of password you want is known as WPA-PERSONAL. That means that you dont have a password like AJ5KEKD44KKDI, instead you have a password like BUBBAbabeBOOBOO **the names of my 3 dogs** or you can give it any password you want. WPA Personal means that you give it a password and you can make it something you'll remember.

Some might argue that its less secure than other types, and technically that might or might not be true, but any hacker who's going to hack your network, if he can hack a wpa personal password, he can hack ANY password, therefore isnt worth really worrying about. If he's going to do it, he's going to do it and there wouldnt be anything you could do about it other than shut off the wireless. What you want to do is just keep the neighbors from jumping on and sucking your bandwidth down to nothing. A good long and strong wpa personal password will do that.

But dont worry annie, I'm sure this will all go very smooth.

I'm on skype today as bishopazrael/ on ichat as [email protected]

If you have any questions or just want to talk about it give me a jingle. I'm in the office pretty much all day today.

Bishop

Thanks Bishop - that sounds great! I did get on Belkin's website and they have a presentation showing how to set it up step by step - very impressive! yes you are right in my hookup - before I bought my mac I only had one pc on dsl and now I'm adding the macbook that I want wireless. My router will be here tomorrow (just checked UPS website) and if I have any problems I will be sure to let you know. You guys are so helpful and more knowledgable than the "geek squad" i'm sure. I mentioned to him I had a Dell PC and a macbook that I wanted wireless. He just looked at me and said, "A Macintosh and a PC?" I said yes, dell pc and apple macbook. He sort of stuttered then told me if I call the Geek Squad to be sure to tell them that I had a mac. That's pretty confirmed it - these guys have no idea what they're doing besides the fact I have never paid a tech to come to my house for anything! Thanks again
Annie

One question tho - do I need to remove anything from my first set up before I start this new one. Just didn't know if when I set up the Linksys it needed to be removed before I installed the Belkin. Don't want an old install to mess with a new one! Thanks - Annie

Hmm... good question.

I would say, unplug the Linksys, both power and from the DSL modem. Just take it and set it aside. Unplugging it wont loose any settings or anything.

Just pull it from the setup and put it to the side. If things really go wonky on you you can just plug it back in.

The Linksys is gone - I took it back to best buy and got a refund. I will just see what happens when I set up my Belkin...Thanks!
Annie

I hate Best Buy; I never go there unless I absolutely have to. Geek Squad is absolutely useless even for those who knows how to open and close programs. I get my electronic needs either from Circuit City or Newegg.

Hopefully the Belkin works out better for ya Annie.

Thanks hotpursuit - I now do not like Best Buy for them to push their geek squad on me and I am a very experienced windows user and worked as a computer support tech for over 10 years as I told him. He said I could not do it and would need their help - yeah right - you just want my money! I told him no thanks. I do like Circuit City also.

hotpursuit said:

I get my electronic needs either from Circuit City or Newegg.

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I can honestly say I will never buy another computer from Circuit City. Nor will I purchase the Circuit City Advantage warranty from them. Their warranty was pretty much useless. I've never had any bad experiences with Best Buy, but I haven't bought anything more than some dvds/video games from them.

michaelstumpf said:

I can honestly say I will never buy another computer from Circuit City. Nor will I purchase the Circuit City Advantage warranty from them. Their warranty was pretty much useless. I've never had any bad experiences with Best Buy, but I haven't bought anything more than some dvds/video games from them.

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I dont think I've ever bought a computer from a retail store; only things I get is movies, music, and maybe small electronics (video games..etc).

I've only purchased one PC from a retail store and that was Circuit City. That's an HP desktop and it is 10 years old and still going! Since then I've purchased a Dell online and a macbook online.

Annie

$60 really isn't a bad deal to have someone come out to your house. I know people who would pay it and not because they couldn't figure it out, but because they can afford to not waste their time doing it.

I had a belkin router and it worked great and the tech support was wonderful. Until the warranty went out... the next month the router for some unexplainable reason switiched to being a switch instead of a router and would not go back. Belkin guy bascially told me i was SOL after about 3 hours trying to fix it. But while it was working it worked great.

Setting up a wireless network isnt hard at all. Like Bishop said, follow the poster. Most of the time they will have a wizard that guides you through. It also doesnt hurt to know a little about your internet connections, DSL (will most likely use PPPoE for authentication) or cable fast access (most likely DHCP but they sometimes marry the MAC (Media Access Control) address of your network card to their network).

I would highly suggest that once you get it working to configure WEP or WPA. This way no one can steal your access without permission.

On the topic of Mac-wireless.. Are there any Mac compatible Wireless N pcmcia cards? I want to upgrade to wireless N for the enhanced range, but need a pcmcia cardfor my G4 Ti 'Book.

alucard said:

Most of the time they will have a wizard that guides you through.

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Every time hear that word, I think of that cybershot commercial.