Both have their drawbacks. You can go with wired or wireless. If you go with wireless, then you have to have wireless LAN/NIC/Ethernet cards which most mobo's do not have. They are usually wired and integrated. You have to deal with interference issues and range issues even with no other wireless devices in your home, and if you do have other wireless devices like telephones, etc., on the same frequency you can have more issues. Of course with wired, you have to run the cable. If that's not a problem, wired is the most reliable secure way. You want to use what's called CAT5 cable. Most routers, both wired and wireless can be anywhere from only 25-30 bucks on up. Most are in the $35-50 range. Either way, the cable (for cable service) or phone line (for DSL service) plugs into the modem. The modem then connects to the router via the CAT5 cable (WAN port). Some routers are both cable and DSL, some are for only one type of service. Then the router's LAN ports (if wired) using CAT5 cable connect to each PC's mobo's LAN/NIC/Ethernet port or PCI or PCI-express LAN/NIC/Ethernet card. The you call up the router's configuration screen (IP address in your address bar), login with the default user and pass, then enter your ISP login info. (Then change from the default user and pass login). You only have to do that one time and from then on you're always connected. That's all there is to it. On XP, I never had to do any kind of configuration or settings changes since XP is already setup for broadband. But if you are going from dial-up to DSL or cable, you can run into all kinds of problems changing because Dial-Up Networking settings are put and changed in the Registry which can (and did in my case) interfere with broadband. I actually had to reformat in order to get the best performance from broadband. Then of course there's all kinds of tweaks you can do to get even faster speeds. There's probably a few extra steps with wireless, can't say for certain, I never tried it because of all the interference issues I already have with other wireless devices. -Clint God Bless, Clint Hamilton, Owner http://www.OrpheusComputing.com http://www.ComputersCustomBuilt.com http://www.OrpheusComputing.com/cheap_reliable_web_hosting.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vern" I have a WinXP desk top, a Win7 desktop and a Win7 laptop. I have no idea what I'm doing. Do I want one of these to be wired to the router? If so which one? Please keep routers in the under $100 range. Thanks Vern ========================= The list's FAQ's can be seen by sending an email to PCWorks-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with FAQ in the subject line. To unsubscribe, subscribe, set Digest or Vacation to on or off, go to //www.freelists.org/list/pcworks . You can also send an email to PCWorks-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with Unsubscribe in the subject line. Your member list settings can be found at //www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi/l=pcworks . Once logged in, you have access to numerous other email options. The list archives are located at //www.freelists.org/archives/pcworks/ . All email posted to the list will be placed there in the event anyone needs to look for previous posts. -zxdjhu-