Wireless Networks

[Alkaloid]

So, I bought a new tower the other day because my laptop died, but it didn't come with wireless, so I grabbed an Edimax EW-7711UAn wireless USB connector as well. Its about 20m and a couple of walls away from the router, an Linksys E2000. I wasn't expecting the speed or connection to be great, but it is sooooo slow I can't even get a connection fast enough to watch youtube quality videos half the time, and it tends to drop out and reconnect all the time. I've tried all the usb ports on the computer and checked the channels as well, but I still get a terrible connection, but the laptop worked fine sitting more or less exactly where the tower is.

I'm thinking I might get a wireless ethernet bridge as that should be faster and I'll get a better connection, butn thought i'd check to see first if anyone has any experience with these things and if I'm just being an absolute nonce?

[Alan Bolte]

Have you tried seeing if you get a better signal with the tower in the same room as the router? If your reception is still bad at close range with no obstructions, then chances are you either need to change a setting (don't know the model, so I can't be specific), (re)install the latest driver, or you got a bad piece of hardware and should try to get a warranty replacement.

[TronPaul]

I've found the best way to deal with wireless (if I must) is to get an wireless card with external antenna connectors. This allows you to get a separate antenna base (like this) so you can place it in a good location. This has helped a lot for me and for people I suggested it to.

[SCRawl]

Yes, 20m with walls between your computer and the router sounds as though you'll get spotty connections at best. That outrigger antenna assembly sounds like a good bet, though of course running some cable would be better still. Yeah, yeah, I know, wires are ugly and no one wants to drill holes in their walls.

[Dragon Angel]

You would probably need to buy a wireless repeater, and place it somewhere between your PC and your router. Well, provided that your card IS receiving its signal properly, as per Alan Bolte's suggestion.

[Darth Wong]

The first and easiest thing to do is check the settings on the router. Obviously you want to make sure that transmission power is set to 100% (a lot of routers have it set by default to something less than this), and then you might want to try different channels. Of course, this might be inadequate, but if it turns out that simply changing the channel helps, then that's the simplest and easiest thing to do right now. It may be that you have a neighbour who's on the same channel.

[Alkaloid]

Yeah, I changed the channels cos my neighbour was using the same one, and that helped a bit, but it turns out my housemate bought a safe the other day and put it in the formerly empty cupboard between the router and pretty much everything in the house. Moving that seemed to do wonders, but it's still a bit spotty out of the same room. I'd love to go wired, but I'm renting and I doubt the landlord will approve of me drilling holes in the walls, so I'll probably still need to get a repeater or something. Thanks guys.

[Edi]

You're still going to get shitty reception that way. Best bet is buy a separate base station that you can link to your router through WDS or it's going to be shit all the way. I have only 8 meters direct distance between the tower and the modem, but there is one loadbearing wall and one partition wall between them and I get 3 Mbps max out of a 40 Mbps connection through. It was so much hassle that I ended up running 30 meters of Cat5 to get rid of the problem.

[Executor32]

Powerline networking might be an option, too. I can't speak for how effective it is, having no experience with it myself, but it at least wouldn't require drilling holes to avoid having long cables lying everywhere.

[Edi]

Powerline stuff only works if the wiring in the house is in good condition, the two locations aren't out of phase with each other and you don't use those adapters with an extension cord. depending on the room layout, running the cat5 up a wall in a corner and then along the walls there gets rid of the problem of cables underfoot. There are cable rails you can buy and attach with doublesided acrylic tape so that they stay in place, then just run he cable in those. It doesn't cost a whole lot to do and once you have it in place, no problems.