Hooking PS3 to PC; Free internets - hooray?!

[A Zarkin' Frood]

My PS3s wireless connection is unstable as fuck. My Computer's wireless internet, on the other hand, works like a charm, save for the occasional bottleneck. So, I thought, why not connect my PS3 to my computer and steal that internet! I googled and I found, but nothing that worked for me. Either the stuff was written by someone who barely made it through his grammar classes or years ago, when it still worked. Unfortunately the google seems to be not of much help in this case. So I ask you, knowledgeable people of NPF!

Is there a way to connect my PS3 to use the PCs internet connection?

EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm on Windows 7 in case that matters.

[Jagos]

The easiest way is to have them both use the same router, right?

[A Zarkin' Frood]

There is exactly one router in the house which is two floors below. My computer's wifi card can handle that just fine, the PS3's not so much. Which Is why I want to use the computer's connection with my PS3.

[Sithdarth]

One way to do it is buy a cheapo wired router with no wireless ability and two relatively short Cat-5 cables. You hook your computer and your PS3 to the wired router and then bridge the wireless connection on your computer to the wired connection you just made. Alternatively you can just turn on internet sharing through your computer.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Could you just relocate the router? Maybe so its closer? Also, it is possible on some Routers to boost the transmission signal. That might also work.

Also, just an advanced warning. My PS3 is directly across from my wireless router. I've also plugged it in with a rather longish ethernet cable.

No matter what, it sucks. I mean, I don't have a really super fast connection to begin with, but from what I've heard, the PS3 tends to be a bit slow to begin with.

Before, you really get into anything major, could you at least see if plugging in your PS3 directly into the router even helps? Might be worth trying. Assuming you can set something up.

SWB

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Moving the router is not possible at all, unfortunately, otherwise I would have tried that. My problem is not that the connection is too slow, but that it only even works once every other blue moon and then it's not stable enough to do anything at all.

Right now I have them connected with an Ethernet cable, trying to somehow make it so the PS3 can use the Computer's wifi. No success yet.

[Sithdarth]

Yeah see you more or less need a router in order to hook your computer to your PS3. The Earthnet ports weren't really designed for direct point to point connections. I think there is a way to make it work but its way complicated even to me and I've been managing my families home network since I was a teenager. The point being routers are important and you need one for a reason. You can get a purely wired one really cheap usually.

[Nikose Tyris]

I know how to do it the OPPOSITE way - turn your desktop into a wireless broadcast station - but not the other way around. :/ And it will not work at the same time as you're getting your internet through the same card.

Listing steps here for prosperity:

On your desktop computer, hook a CAT5 Ethernet cable from your desktop Ethernet port to the PS3.

enter your "Network and Sharing Center".

Select "Set up a new connection or network."

Select "Set up a wireless ad hoc network".

Rest is pretty straightfoward.


If there's a way to do the same thing in cable connection, it's not in my scope right now. There may be a utility you can find online.

[Nikose Tyris]

Got it.

if you are using windows XP here is how it works.

To enable Internet Connection Sharing on a network connection, follow theses steps: 1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Network Connections.
2. Click the local area network (LAN) in your case it wout be the wireless on your laptop.connection or click the dial-up networking connection that you want to share (that is, the one that connects to the Internet), and then under Network Tasks, click Change settings of this connection.
3. On the Advanced tab, click to select the Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection check box.
4. If this is a dial-up networking connection, and you want the connection to be automatically dialed when another computer on your network tries to connect to the Internet, click to select the Establish a dial-up connection whenever a computer on my network attempts to access the Internet check box.
5. If you want to permit other network users to enable or to disable the shared Internet connection, click to select the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box.
6. Under Internet Connection Sharing in Home networking connection, select the connection that connects the computer that is sharing its Internet connection to the other computers on your network.
Note that to enable Internet Connection Sharing in Windows XP, you must have administrative rights.

Important When you enable Internet Connection Sharing, the network adapter that is connected to the home network or to the small-office network receives a new static IP address of 192.168.0.1, with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Existing TCP/IP connections on the network may be lost and must be reestablished.