I have a PC up stairs and the wireless PCI card has given up but I have a spare router tucked away in the cupboard. Can it be used to replace the function of the card in the pc.

It’s a virgin cable system and not ADSL.

No. Well.. perhaps. Don’t think so tho.

It’d have to have the ability to act as.. a wireless access point in reverse, somehow.. not sure I’ve seen any features like that on the ones I’ve messed with.

It’d have to have the ability to act as.. a wireless access point in reverse, somehow.. not sure I’ve seen any features like that on the ones I’ve messed with.

I thought the same.

Some routers will do it. For example, if you search for the Linksys WRT-54G you will see you can re-programme it to do loads of stuff other than act as an access point.

I think it’s fairly rare though. Try and find out a bit more about the make and model of the virgin box you’ve got – it’s likely to be a differnt brand under the virgin cover.

The site here http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index
has a DB of some different types of router that can be ‘upgraded’ (usually for free if you’re willing to trust the code written by an anonymous geek).

If you’re lucky, someone somewhere will have developed a solution to convert it.

£13 for a new adapter.

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=usb+wireless+adapter&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=17913092440149128714&sa=X&ei=i1AxTq2cAYyD-wbj6cyVDQ&ved=0CDsQ8wIwAw