WiFi Question

Hi, excuse my ignorance on this matter.

Let me explain my situation. I live upstairs in this household, whereas the router is downstairs, on almost the opposite side. The connection is really bad, and only seems to be getting worse with time. We're considering running a 100ft ethernet cable directly from the router up to my room for my computer.

Now, I'm planning on doing a lot of next generation console gaming, as well as online on my DS. I was wondering if it was possible to run the ethernet cable from the downstairs router to  a second router placed in my room, and then run another cable from that router to my computer. That way, provided it's even possible, I'd have a wifi connection being broadcasted more locally for nextgen and handheld wifi gaming, as well as a much better direct connection for my PC for browsing the interbutt and gaming online on it.

Is this a possible solution?

If not, are there any similar solutions that are? I really appreciate any help on the matter.

The piece of equipment you are looking for is called a switch.

>>1
This is definitely possible. Don't listen to >>2; you need a wireless AP, not a switch. A switch is useless.

There are a few ways to do this. You could get an extra router, like you said; easiest way is to just run the 100ft cable from the downstairs router directly to the WAN port of the upstairs router, and everything will magically work. However, this will be doing a lot of NAT, and it would make for complicated configuration for gaming; you'd have to set the upstairs router's WAN IP as the DMZ on the downstairs router, then have it forward your gaming ports to your computer...

A better way is to assign the new router some IP address you can remember (like 192.168.5.1), then turn off DHCP on the new router, then hook it up to the other router using a crossover cable (not using the WAN port). Then set up the wireless AP, and everything will magically work; the new router will function only as a wireless access point, which the downstairs router will see as just a switch.

A third way is to run the 100ft cable directly to your computer like you said, then just set up your computer as an AP for your console and DS. You already have a wireless card in your computer and you wouldn't need to buy an extra router, so it would cost the least amount, but it's the hardest to set up.

I suggest option 2). Have fun.

Lately, I've been getting frequent memory leaks on my computer, especially when I play video on it (usually with XviD codecs). Is there any way to fix this fucking problem, besides getting a new computer or a mac?

Brief computer specs:
HP Pavilion ze4500 (2.4 GHz, 704MB RAM), 20GB hard drive

The piece of equipment you are looking for is called a Dell.

>>4
Try FFDSHOW
P.S.: Memory leaks get fixed when the process terminates and frees its virtual space.
Also consider Lunix, Opera, etc.