General Networking question

[Dyck15]

I want to set up a home network, with my DSL line on all computers on my network. Im still pretty new to networking. Im not sure which way to go, wires, or wireless. I have heard that wireless can sometimes be a lot slower, as well as the cost is much more then the traditional non-wireless way. The only thing im thinking about, isnt there a limit to how far my CAT5 cable can go without experiancing packet loss or interferance of some sort? Becuase of my setup, i would have one PC in the basement, and another upstairs. What Im wonding is, if i were to stick the router in my basement, could i run CAT5 cable upstairs to the second PC without experiencing any slowdowns?

Would wireless be OK in my situation? I would rather use wireless, but the problem is i dont want to have to buy a bunch of wireless cards and the router, and then have a laggy and unreliable connection.

Any tips?

[minibubba]

you can do a mix of wireless and wired if you want. The max limit for cat5 without some form of repeater is 100 meters (that should be more than enough to cover your house, no matter how big it is ;) ) Wireless will be slower than a typical wired environment, but it will still be much faster than your DSL connection.

the only problem you may have with wire, is getting it from the basement to the other PC. There shouldn't be any loss. Athough I try to avoid running the cat5 along any power lines, since it's unsheilded.

[Nosferatu]

I also just installed a home network to share an adsl connection. First I was going for wireless, but the I started hearing things about connection loss due to microwave ovens, cell phones and other stuff. Also they say it adds about 2ms of delay, which off course is bad for gaming. So now I have a cat5 cable network.
minibubba is right about the power lines. At first one of the cables ran close to a power outlet in the wall which caused problems. So make sure the cables are as far apart from power lines as possible