SB3 wired to wireless solution -- non-techie

[pdorsey]

I have been the happy owner of a wired SB3 for a few years. A couple of years ago, my wife bought me the Controller, which made an already good experience with the product great.

As of last week, the sole Ethernet port near my audio system is occupied by another device (ATT uverse). After poking around, it seems that one can 'split' a cat5 cable by doing some mods at both ends, but my technical skills approach zero. I've seen some older posts in the DIY forum about opening up the back of the SB and inserting a specific wireless card, but I have zero confidence in my ability to do this without killing the thing.

So, is there any kind of external adaptor I can buy (akin to the plug-in wireless cards that you used to see on laptops before they all had wifi built-in) that would allow my SB to pick up the home wifi network? Or should I just junk the old SB3 and buy a standalone Receiver?

I don't mind so much plunking down the 150 for the receiver as I do junking a perfectly functional piece of HW that has served me well over the years.

TIA.

[Mnyb]

why not a 2 or 4 port network switch ? You can find them anyware these days cheap

one cable in to the and the switch has outputs for the other device.

Tranparent just plug in the stuff. No setup nedded just get short patch cables to the SB3 and the ATT Universe (not crossover cables)

[aubuti]

Is the SB3 still near the ethernet run? If so, then all you need is a simple 4-5 port ethernet switch. You use a simple ethernet patch cable to connect one of the switch's ports to the existing ethernet port. Then you use similar ethernet cable to connect the SB3 to one of the remaining ports on the switch, and another cable from the ATT uverse (what is that?) to another free port on the switch. Nothing terribly techie required at all.

Here's an example of what you're looking for. I bought a couple of these for US$10 each a few years ago. But other brands and models are fine.

http://www.amazon.com/D-Link--1105-5-Port-Desktop-Switch/dp/B000GHD73Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1293723828&sr=8-2

Note that this all assumes that you have a router somewhere that will hand out IP addresses to the various devices.

[toby10]

I second/third the simple switch.

Are you certain your SB3 does not have the WiFi card? I know some earlier SB3's did not, but those are quite rare.

[pdorsey]

I knew there had to be a simple solution. Thank you. I will try this - if it doesn't work, I'm only out twenty bucks and ten minutes of work.

FWIW, uverse is ATT's all-in-one iptv/VoIP/internet service over fiber. (their analog to verizon's FiOS). Pretty slick based on a week's usage Don't know whether using a network switch will muck things up, but worth a try.

Thanks again.

[pdorsey]

Done. Why on earth do people insist on making things complicated when there's a simpler solution?

Thanks again.

[aubuti]

Why on earth do people insist on making things complicated when there's a simpler solution?
That's why we're here. Albeit somewhat puzzled by exactly who are these insistent people....